March 2003 posts
Avatars of the Slayer (spoilerish for S7) -- Random, 17:33:49 03/18/03 Tue
"Yesterday this Day's Madness did prepare
Tomorrow's Silence, Triumph or Despair..."
"The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam"
Trans. Edward Fitzgerald, 5th revision
Both Buffy and the First Evil are wrong: it's not just about power.
It's about change. About being. About apotheosis. In short, to quote the Mayor, it's about the things that shape us.
Like all mythos, the story of the Slayer harkens to greater themes, more profound hobgoblins of the unconscious. Themes that pervade the Buffyverse can be found in many cultures, in the dreams and fears and beliefs of all humanity.
In every generation, there is a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the Slayer...
Here's the thing: one day, we turned on our TV set and happened to see a show with a small blonde girl who looks like she should be browsing the departments of Neiman-Marcus. Instead, she walks in the night with sharp sticks and other dangerous objects and fights yet other dangerous objects, mostly vampires. She goes through the normal pangs of humanity - love, fear, need, pain, loss - and yet, as we watch, we realize that there's something more to her than superstrength and bad puns. She is a girl - soon to become a woman - who embodies contradictions that both define her - and inspire her to escape external definition.
As we move with accelerating speed toward the final stretch of the season - the season that proposes to take us "back to the beginning" - the necessity of a holistic perspective looms. We look back across the last seven years, the footprints in the sand, so to speak, and re-examine the original premise of the show - a feminist ethic wherein a young girl is empowered to battle the forces of evil. There is something universal about the story. Its originality, the genius of its conceptualization, would be lost if there wasn't an appeal that transcended mere novelty. What makes the Slayer myth special is the fact that it multiplies complexities by its very existence - it recalls a larger mythological scheme.
The Mythology
Despite its superficial Judeo-Christian trappings (demons, conflicts between good and evil, et cetera), the myth of the slayer hearkens to an older, more primal tradition. Actual antitheses between good and evil are relatively rare in the history of myth, and the Slayer follows in the footsteps of a more complex narrative. At its center is a form of clear-cut ambiguity - If I may use such a oxymoron. The myth of the Slayer revolves around a paradigm wherein polarities are often intertwined to the extent that they actually cohabit each other. That is, they are both distinct and interchangeable (see Rah and Little Bit for further clarification and examples.) It is a very humanistic perspective, the idea that absolutes are muddled and run together. What complicates this particular example, however, is the fact that we are dealing with an alien Other in polarity with the human Self. Such dichotomies inevitably engender a fundamental conflict that ultimately find expression in a greater mythological scheme.
It is in Hindu cosmology, perhaps, that the myth of the Slayer finds its fullest expression. Hindu cosmology is a complicated affair, even to initiates. Two of the central pervading themes, however, are the concepts of variability and multiplicity. That is, traditional Hinduism perceives the deities and forces they control as being both literally and metaphysically manifold. While clear-cut distinctions do exist between the gods of the Vedic pantheon, they each possess attributes that are not only individualistic, but actually anthropomorphized in the forms of avatars: physical beings who represent various traits of the god or goddess from whom they spring. The traditional trimurti -- Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva - give way to a plethora of divinities, greater and lesser, and, more importantly, yield new beings whose complexity surpasses that of their progenitors in many ways. Of primary concern to us here are the figures of Siva and the Mahadevi. Siva - one of the traditional trimurti as I mentioned above - is the cosmic creator and destroyer (the creator trait he shares, in fine primal fashion, with the Brahma). The Mahadevi (literally, "Great Goddess") is a singular name for a plurality of goddesses. The primary (i.e. original) form of the Great Goddess is Parvati, Siva's wife. She tames the complex and volatile Siva, domesticating him into a settled life. From this vision of wedded bliss spring other goddess who represent attributes of the complex whole (avatars). Foremost amongst these are two who do battle against the forces of evil. Durga, the unapproachable warrior, stands in defense, ready to fight off all attackers. However, it is the times of greatest duress that the most famous, and most complex, goddess in the Hindu pantheon emerges from Durga. Kali, the dark one, springs forth to deal destruction to the foes that threaten her...and to create anew in the aftermath
In Hindu cosmology, we must always go back to the beginning because the universe is cyclic, emerging from chaos for a while, only to ultimately dissolve back into it again. And emerge once more. Therefore, underlying the order that preserves the world is the eternal chaos that threatens to reclaim it. Once cannot exist without the other - not because of some cliché of dualism, but because they are predicated upon each other.
Paralleling the cycle of universal death and rebirth is the very Eastern concept of reincarnation. The concept of the transmigration of souls - which Buddhism inherited from Hinduism -provides a perfect perspective for examining the Slayer inheritance. The force that binds the Slayer line finds a parallel in the doctrine of reincarnation, the demon being reborn in the new vessel. Is this progress? Or maintenance of the status quo? Eventually, someone must ask the tough question: what is the culmination of this series of deaths and rebirths? If Buffy is the last guardian of the Hellmouth, are we at last discovering the apotheosis of the Slayer myth? Though I suspect the full story will not be laid completely bare until the season's (and series') end, the significance of Bejoxa's Eye's pronouncement seems to lay an onus upon Buffy. Not the Slayer - not even the last Slayer - but Buffy herself, the last guardian of the Hellmouth. As we shall see in the link to Kali, this is not as simple a proposition as it seems. We are not dealing with just another Slayer. We are dealing with Buffy. This point is underscored the moment she rejects the power offered by the Shadowmen. She is, in fact, the Chosen One, the result of a thousand generations of pre-ordained deaths and rebirths.
But she's the Chosen One who chooses
The power to reject power should not be casually dismissed as mere self-indulgence. As Rah will discuss, it is as much a symbolic act as a practical one. Perhaps even more so, in fact. The problem is, we are dealing with both an entire line of female Slayers and with individual Slayers. A continuum and its discrete parts. If we are to judge Buffy by her "slayerness" - and it seems difficult to avoid doing that to some degree - as well as by her individual identity, we must understand the principle governing the transferal of power through the history of the Slayer line. The procreative/thanatos aspect is obvious - one Slayer dies, the next is born, cause/effect. Each Slayer metaphorically gives birth to her successor - and dies in the act. Indeed, when we reach Rah's discussion of Kali, it will be relevant to note that the word "avatar" literally means, "a passing down" in the Sanskrit etymology. Kali as an avatar is dependent upon her source...yet she transcends it as well.
This is a key point. Like Yeat's gyre or the creations and cataclysms of Meso-American myth, the cycle does not necessarily imply repetition. Or regress. Though both are certainly possible. But it's a change of a more profound order that concerns us here. The Hindus understood that, within the cycle, there is room for freewill. Trapped in a cosmic destiny, we nevertheless shape our own individual destinies. And Buffy is both immutably part of the Slayer heritage and transcendent by virtue of her identity as a human female. As an embodiment of procreative power - the very substance of the natural order of birth and death - she must choose between the ultimately desexualized role of pure warrior, or the more powerful, more complex role of the feminine ideal. As Little Bit will discuss, this sets up a very complex destiny. The Hindu conceptualization of reincarnation varies from the later Buddhist one. Whereas the Buddhists emphasize the annihilation of self, the Hindus place far more emphasis upon virtue and wisdom in and of themselves as means of release from the cycle. If, then, we are looking at the end of the line of guardians, we are perhaps also looking at a culmination of a moral order. I am not arguing that virtue accumulates on a conscious level and that Buffy is hence the final rung in a continual ascent up the ladder. Rather, I posit that she represents an achievement of Self that has been a thousand generations in the making. The Alien - separated by so many dead Slayers between her and Buffy - finally comes to rest in the person of our latest Slayer.
The Dance
"We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show;
But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this checkerboard of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays
And one by one back in the Closet lays."
Rubaiyat, verses 68 & 69
Spike: She was cunning, resourceful...oh, did I mention? Hot....I could have danced all night with that one.
Buffy: You think we're dancing?
Spike: That's all we've ever done.
-- "Fool For Love"
The Lord of the Dance, Siva (meaning "auspicious) provides an ideal masculine mirror (to borrow a phrase from Sol) to understand Buffy. As husband to Parvati, who engenders Durga the Fierce who in turn engenders Kali, Siva is the ultimately subverted by his feminine counterpart, domesticated, his powers muted.
Siva as the creator and the destroyer. Perhaps Spike and Buffy's Dance is nothing less than the immeasurably old conjunction of Siva and Kali. The masculine and feminine in opposition and conjuction. Yet in the end, Buffy stands alone, complete unto herself, and Spike becomes a masculine mirror who ultimately proves an insufficient reflection. Just as a vampire has no reflection in a mirror - an apt metaphor for their spiritual emptiness - so too does the Slayer lack a reflection in the masculine mirror.
At least in the physical realm. In the metaphysical realm, though, we are confronted with the necessity of defining Buffy's feminine qualities in relation to her role as the Slayer. The story of Kali's Dance with Siva (see Rah's post) reflect Buffy's Dance with Spike, but in both cases, the Feminine is Ascendant. Siva is as a creator and destroyer becomes subverted not by his own insufficiency, but by the power of his female counterpart. In essence, the story of the Slayer, as we have it now, could only end in this manner. As Kali dances and destroys, she engenders her own paradigm for reality. She must, if she is to fulfill her purpose. And, in the same vein, the Slayer, who is necessarily female, must be considered both as a woman and a warrior. It is then that we can understand the necessities inherent in Buffy's identity as a Slayer.
"We are as ignorant of the meaning of dragons as we are of the meaning of the universe, but there is something in a dragon's image that appeals to the human imagination, and so we find the dragon in quite distant places and times. It is, so to speak, a necessary monster."
-- Jorge Luis Borges "Book of Imaginary Beings"
The necessity of evil...
The necessity of the Slayer...
The two are necessarily bound together.
As we will see in Rahael's post, one of the most significant moments in BtVS history occurs in the relatively innocuous Season 5 opener. Dracula confronts Buffy with her darkness, attempting to subvert her his own will by the most innocuous of appeals - shared interests. Dracula is not merely an example of a powerful vampire used for comic effect. Rather, he becomes a conduit for Buffy's understanding of her own nature. In a sense, he is virtually a psychopomp - not only for Buffy, but for the viewers who have watched the show wrestle with the nature of evil and the Slayer's role. The Slayer exists because of evil. Her power, it seems, may even be predicated upon the presence of evil, much as order is predicated upon chaos. And vice versa.
All this is relatively straightforward. But the implications for the feminine ideal are profound indeed. Buffy is - in an almost-literal sense of the word - impregnated with evil even as she is chosen to destroy it. Buffy must confront the darkness that dwells within, yet it is that very darkness that sustains her against the darkness without. And it is this darkness that comes to define her, regardless of her essential feminine nature. For she is an individual, one within whom has been planted the seed of power. Any view of her nature must take this into account, even as we take her social life, her education and her free-will into account
The First Evil's power is not contingent upon the existence of the Slayer (in the role of opposition). Rather, as an archetype of evil, it exists within the Slayer - as it does all beings. What makes the Slayer special is the fact that she performs a role that is directly linked with evil. Not merely in opposition, but in conjunction with the darkness within.
One might even say that the First Evil is a necessary creature, no longer a contingent one.
It is, in the most essential and literal sense of the phrase, a necessary Evil.
When the Slayer rises, so too does evil. Regardless of whether one bears a direct causal relationship to the other - there are arguments for both the negative and the affirmative, arguments that have been hashed and re-hashed on this very board - the reality of the struggle itself is apparent. She stands at the mouth of Hell, and the First Evil chooses to direct its energies toward her and her ilk. The Potentials congregate to Sunnydale...and "Why?" is a question that has legitimately been asked. What advantage can they gain by going to the source of the evil? Certainly, the Slayer's presence will offer them some degree of protection...but how than this protection, however efficient and thorough, outweigh the looming danger from the incipient maw that lies beneath?
The answer is not a simple one, but one point to consider is the central premise of the Slayer myth: that She is called to fight. It is the source of her power, and She becomes - to quote a certain military institution - quite literally an Army of One. If one falls, another takes her place, without fail...unless the First Evil has its way. Therefore, gathering the potentials in the one place where Evil threatens to achieve absolute victory makes perfect sense in the metaphysical realm, if not in the realm of deductive logic. They stand at the mouth of Hell to wait for the fall of their predecessor. In this death, the cycle of the Slayer continues, and is thus validated.
The Fallen Slayer is the Slayer Ascendant.
Primordial evil - predating the creation of the First Slayer - remains locked in pre-history...until the First Evil revives it. If the Slayer is both a contingent and a necessary creature, we must understand her nature in this conflict. Death may have been - and may still yet be - Buffy's gift, but it is not her exclusive domain. The archetypical struggle is an epic one, one that finds its foundations in a mythos that is individual to each slayer, yet ultimately becomes a cosmic one.
In the End, and the Beginning, we must finally confront the image of Kali, Black Earth Mother, the Destroyer and Creator. For this is the essence of the feminine ideal of the Slayer. She's no passive gentle Gaia, suckling the little ones and bending gracefully under the weight of her burden. While Siva is represented by a necklace of skulls, Kali wears them as a decoration about her neck. She embodies conflict and contradiction...and, ultimately, synthesis and fusion. She stands against the forces of darkness.
But she dances with them as well.
Here endeth the prologue. Onwards to Kali. Though Slayers die, Kali lives.
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Spoilers for Aired Season 7 eps only, above. -- Rahael, 17:43:51 03/18/03 Tue
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Wild Spirit........(Spoilers for aired Season 7 eps) -- Rahael, 17:47:44 03/18/03 Tue
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!
Who is the First Slayer? Who is Buffy? Who is the First Evil?
Tara : You're asking the wrong questions
Buffy: Make her speak
(Restless)
These questions have become more insistent as the Buffy finale draws to a close. I am not attempting to offer firm conclusions, nor present my thoughts as fact. Instead I am trying to show a fleeting reflection, which may be usefully provocative, or strike off more thoughts in this forum. I am sure of illuminating responses! All Buffy quotes are from Psyche. The unattributed poetry quotes are from Shelley's Ode to the West Wind. All other quotes have the appropriate URL.
Buffy drinks blood from Dracula's wrist.
Dracula: All those years fighting us. Your power so near to our own... (Cuts his arm with a fingernail till blood wells up) ...and you've never once wanted to know what it is that we fight for? (Holds his arm out to Buffy) Never even a taste?
A taste of blood that sends flashing images through her mind, images of the The First Slayer. Blood coursing through the body. Marti Noxon says that when Buffy drinks from Dracula, she is in fact drinking her own. Dracula emerges from within her, and Dracula articulates a fear that becomes more pressing for her as events hurtle toward the Gift. A hunter whose darkness rivals her prey. Buffy fears that she is more monstrous than anything she slays.
Is she correct? At the season end, her fears, and our fears are dismissed. Buffy burns with love, she is open, not closed. But what if both of these descriptions are true? What exactly is meant by 'death is her gift'?
It's all connected
I want to argue that there is an intimate link between the landscape of the Buffyverse, and Buffy's body. That the hellmouth is contained within her, that the demons express something about her internal struggles.
The darkness that the Hellmouth holds back, the darkness at the heart of a Slayer, the darkness inside a Vampire, and the darkness represented by the First Evil, are connected. And I think the nature of this darkness can be linked to the dark heart of the feminine. This is Buffy's unique concern, because this is the journey she has been since Season 1. Turning from young girl to young woman, becoming a mother, and taking on adult responsibility. It is a journey that goes into the heart of her darkness. It is from this darkness that she forges her strength. It is this darkness that lies at the heart of her love, both sexual and non-sexual. The maternal love she has for Dawn. The sisterly relationships she has with her friends. The love she bore for her mother. It is from this darkness that she gains her great gifts. It is the darkness that gave Spike his soul in a cave in Africa. This is what connects Buffy's 'human' side with her the destructive, violent Slayer lineage. The girl who dived off the tower to save her sister and the world was the same girl who tried to kill her friends in a basement. The girl who burned with love was the same one who danced with Spike while her world fell apart. Buffy did not come back wrong. The darkness that haunts the Buffyverse is what powers our heroine.
What lies beneath? I think there are psychological and sexual implications for this. We see the unconscious as existing below us, in the dark basements of our mind. But there are also sexual implications (this is brought out by Andrew's bad translation - "it eats us starting with our bottom".) The Hellmouth combines both senses of 'beneath'. It is the vagina dentata. It is the unconscious. It has an intimate relationship with Buffy. On a metanarrative level, we are aware that the demons and disorder that bubbles up from the hellmouth are metaphors for the tribulations of Buffy and her friends. Buffy's entrance into Sunnydale is fortuitously timed with the increasing activity of the Hellmouth.
This post suggests that Sunnydale, the Slayer, the vampires and the Scoobies are thrown into sharp relief when viewed through the figure of Kali, a Hindu Goddess, an aspect of the eternal feminine, and in particular, its dark, maternal, destructive, sensual aspect.
My starting point in thinking up this post was centered on the figure of the First Slayer. Perhaps there is a particular reason why the First Slayer is shown with such dark skin as inarticulate, violent and primal. Perhaps there is a reason why she is twinned with Tara, who appears dressed in a Sari. This is not the educated, articulate Western woman speaking for voiceless primitive. Instead, on one level, Tara and the First Slayer merge in this scene. It confounds our expectations, and shows us that the destructive, inarticulate and nameless can exist in the figure of Tara, and that the gentle, compassionate, wise element represented by Tara can exist within the First Slayer.
TARA: (offscreen) I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death,
the blood cry, the penetrating wound. (The woman straightens up and looks
Buffy in the eye.)
TARA: I am destruction. Absolute ... alone. (Restless)
Tara's words say to me that the First Slayer, as she appears here, transcends the temporal and spatial (and just to prove that I haven't conveniently realised this to fit my Kali thesis, I said the very same thing during the 'silent Slayer' discussion months ago!). She lives in the dynamic action, in the Slayer spirit. The real First Slayer died a very long time ago, and yet Buffy has numerous visions of her. Is this some profound connection between these two women? Is Buffy being visited by the essence of the Slayer spirit?
The black goddess
Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Once upon a time, a woman was created, to fight the demons. Blood drips from her mouth; skin black as the night sky, with unkempt hair. She is the manifestation of power in the universe, and has many aspects: she represents disorder and destruction, she contains within her the fire that transforms and restores. She destroys to create. She represents time, which devours all. She is the terrible mother, who gives birth and brings death. She is simultaneously terrifying, but also reassuring, because she protects. She is also known for bringing righteous, often violent, justice. She is the aspect of the enraged feminine awoken, dynamic and difficult to control.
In one version of the Kali story, we are told that she emerges from the Goddess Durga, fully formed, during battle. The enemy was the demon Raktabija, whose blood had the power to replicate forms of himself, as his dripping blood fell to the earth. Kali defeated him by drinking up the blood before it could reach the ground, and then sucking his body dry. But the blood she drank left her dancing wildly, and uncontrollably, until her dance threatened to destroy everything.
"Kali is the active destructive uncontrollable force here. She upsets the normal balance of power between Hindu gods and goddesses, in which the goddess is the power behind the god, but does not act herself. Here Kali is both the power and the action"
(http://reli350.vassar.edu/trover/power.html.)
It is the masculine, in the form of Siva who stops her destructive rampage.
Other stories tell of how Kali fought and killed two demons. It was then, celebrating Her victory, that She drained the blood from their bodies and, drunk from the slaughter, She began to dance. Kali became overjoyed with the feel of their dead flesh under Her feet, and She continued to keep dancing, more and more wildly, until She finally realized that Her husband, Shiva, was underneath Her, and that She was dancing him to death.
(http://www.dollsofindia.com/kali.htm)
Kali is often depicted in this posture, standing on top of Siva:
"But Kali's raised right hand is in the mudra "Be not afraid." She is dancing on her consort, Lord Shiva. One interpretation of this image is that after the goddess slew the buffalo demon, she got drunk on its blood and started to destroy indiscriminately and with wild abandon. (Remember, the problem is not power, but how to keep power under control.) In an effort to calm her, Shiva lay down and let her dance on him, bringing an end to her rampage. "
(http://www.paganpaths.net/kali.html. )
I cannot resist going back to Fool For Love, and Buffy telling Spike "You are beneath me". Unlike many traditional images of femininity, Kali is the one who is dynamic, aggressive, and assertive. While Parvati, another aspect of the feminine domesticates Siva, Kali is often depicted as partnering Siva in his dance of destruction.
I think we have been shown again and again how Buffy herself can exhibit this power which even she fears. Her oft repeated fear is that 'she's just a killer'. She gets a thrill from the hunt. When she falls under the 'thrall' of Dracula, it is a metaphor for how strong the current of the dark energies within Buffy are, how she can fall under its spell, and be unable to control her behaviour. Buffy falls for one charismatic Vampire after another. The whole of Season 5 shows Buffy's struggle to contain this energy and power, which scares her. If she lets it take over her, her heart will turn to stone, and she will be nothing but a killer. Season 6 is an extended expression of Buffy's desire to give into her dark, destructive urges, and her attempt to resist and punish herself for this.
"Kali incites Shiva to dangerous and destructive behaviour that threatens the stability of the cosmos, and they dance together so wildly the world is threatened. Shiva traditionally calms Kali and defeats her, though there are few images and myths of Kali in a tranquil state. Kali plays an opposite role to Parvati in Shiva's life. She is the goddess who threatens stability and order.
(http://philtar.ucsm.ac.uk/encyclopedia/hindu/devot/kali.html)
It's not just Buffy - this story is echoed in Willow. When Willow finally gives into all destructive urges, she literally turns herself black, almost making the reference to Kali, the black goddess, explicit. Willow's rampage of vengeance through Sunnydale, like Kali's destructive dance is unstoppable, until Xander puts his body in her way. In the final episodes of Season 6, Willow is Buffy's darker urges made flesh. It might be suggested from Season 6 that this dark spirit is ultimately destructive, evil and to be avoided. But the figure of Kali is more than this, and indeed she suggests a way for Buffy to both face her dark night, and transcend all.
Is there anyone in the Buffyverse more vibrant, more alive than Buffy? She protects life in Sunnydale, rescuing the world from apocalypse after apocalypse. But there is a paradox - Buffy spends her time with the undead, in the night, among the graveyards. This creative, loving girl spends her life killing demons. Demons she has twice fallen in love with. She's 'just a girl' and yet, part of something greater. She's connected to a long line of chosen warriors. She's a mother to Dawn, and yet has never given birth. She burns with Love, and yet, Death is her Gift. At the end of Season 5, in her most maternal and sacrificial aspect, Buffy dies to save the world. In Season 6, she is ripped away from the earth, and we learn that she had experienced Heaven. Earth, now to her, was hell. The experience of Heaven and Hell that Buffy experienced might be seen as polar opposites. And yet, we learn that:
One shouldn't jump to the conclusion that Kali represents only the destructive aspect of God's power. What exists when time is transcended, the eternal night of limitless peace and joy, is also called Kali (Maharatri).
http://www.dollsofindia.com/kali.htm
There also some other strong resonances between Buffy and the positive qualities of Kali.
Kali's paramount place of worship is in the cremation ground, preferably at the dead of night, on a suitable day of the waning Moon. Here, her nature becomes clear and apparent. For an adept in the worship, the whole world is a cremation ground, and She, the true form of time, who by herself creates and destroys all, is personified as the pyre. There, after life, all mortals and their wishes, dreams and reflections come to their fruition, a pile of worthless ashes.
Kali is the universal mother. It is believed that she goes into the darkness with us, and for us, to swallow our sins, worries and concerns. She can show us how to radically transform our lives by embracing our own darkness, rather than fearing and fleeing from that which haunts us. She can spiritually hack away at the handcuffs that keep us shackled to the hungry ghosts of the past. There comes a point in the process when you must surrender fully to her healing powers, and let her bring you back cleansed, transformed, whole.
(http://www.dollsofindia.com/kali.htm)
That description of hacking away with at the handcuffs, rescuing people from the hungry ghosts of the past reminds me of Buffy rescuing Spike from the First Evil. Rescuing Dawn from the ghosts of the past in the newly opened Sunnydale school. The sword that Kali carries is said to symbolise
the sword of knowledge, that slices through ignorance and destroys false consciousness. She is said to open the gates of freedom with this sword, having cut the bonds that bind human beings.
(http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/amethystbt/goddesskali.html. )
This sword reminds me of Becoming, when Buffy pierces the heart of Angel before sending him to hell, and in Season 7, echoing her earlier action by stabbing Anya in the heart. This sword of knowledge is a sorrowful burden for Buffy to carry, but one she is forced to carry nonetheless.
Kali is supposed to free mankind by reminding them of the passage of time, of mortality and death. She opens their eyes to the truth, that eventually we all end as a handful of ashes. Buffy, by undergoing death and resurrection (more than once!) embodies once more the duality of birth and life/death and decay. And in Season 7, she is continuously reminding everyone that life is fragile and finite.
Mother's milk is red today
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
When I started thinking of Kali within the Buffyverse, I thought of the First Slayer, and then Buffy. But there are also irresistible comparisons to be made with the First Evil.
"Kali is the Dark Mother of the Hindu pantheon. She has what seem like contradictory aspects to most Western minds: she is protectress/avenger as well as beloved, gentle mother, she represents death and rebirth, she has bloody, violent aspects yet is called upon for mercy. Kali is the basic archetypal image of the birth-and-death Mother, simultaneously womb and tomb, giver of life and devourer of her children. Kali is found in the cremation ground amid dead bodies."
(http://www.paganpaths.net/kali.html. )
Kali is "The hungry earth, which devours its own children and fattens on their
corpses ... But all this and it should not be forgotten is an image not only
of the Feminine but particularly and specifically of the Maternal. For in a
profound way life and birth are always bound up with death and destruction."
(http://home.att.net/~gentletouch/kali.html.)
In Conversations with Dead People, Dawn is convinced that Joyce is trying to talk to her. Joyce is the most ambiguous dead person to appear that night - every other visitation more or less admits to their evil nature. If Joyce is the loving mother, how could she possibly be 'dark' and 'evil'? But the letters daubed in blood on the wall reminds us that mother's milk can be red. This takes us back to Lessons, where Willow says that the earth has teeth. And the quote above on Kali reminds us that while the earth nurtures us, and feeds us, it also eats us up when we die. And the visitation by Joyce demonstrates this, by showing her dead body being eaten by a nameless, and chilling demon.
The name Kali comes from the word "kala," or time. She is the power of time which devours all. She has a power that destroys and should be depicted in awe-inspiring terror. Kali is found in the cremation ground amid dead bodies.
http://www.dollsofindia.com/kali.htm
A while ago, talking about the Angel prophecy, "the father will devour the son" I suggested that this might be linked to the Chronos story, where Chronos (Time) eats his children. I was thinking about this again recently, when William the Poet at the Stakehouse discussed devouring, Chronos and Time. Time devours all of us. Here we are, at the very end of our journey with Buffy. By the time the Season Finale is shown, Buffy, and Sunnydale (pending any spin off) will truly have been devoured from beneath. BtVS is famous as a show all about change. No character remains static, even the ones who achieve immortality. The forces of change sweep through every season.
There is a pleasing symmetry behind the idea that the biggest bad of all, the First Evil's catchphrase is "from beneath you it devours", and the fact that it appears in the Final Season. Time is truly catching up with our heroine and her friends. Time which changes kittens into cats, girls into women, youth into age, and then, finally, 'the only end of age'. And here we are, in the cemetery again. The domain of the dead, the domain of the First Evil. It is also worth noting that what changes a potential Slayer into a Slayer is time, and death. A Slayer both escapes the ravages of time, and falls victim to it before most girls her age. Every Slayer is connected to each other, stretching back all the way to that girl in Primeval, whose body was invaded by an alien black substance. And yet, Buffy's certain shortened lifespan has been a constant theme from the First Season. She has to die, before a potential can become a Slayer.
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But sad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out,
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong but Time decays?
(Shakespeare)
Buffy contains both the beauty of the flower, and the rage of time. She brings death to the immortal vampires, who have tried to avoid the inevitable. But she also stands for life. Not for nothing is her second name "Summers". Not for nothing is her sister, made from her, called Dawn. Darkness and dawn are connected. Summer is part of a cycle, autumn and winter must come, but Spring is never far behind.
The First Evil seems to be Kali-like in its rage. Ever shifting, emerging from beneath, devouring and relentless, taking on the faces of the dead, it seems to be death without the promise of rebirth. Kali unbalanced, uncontrolled unstoppable. The cycle, blown wide open. Buffy needs to stand true to her last name, "Summers" and show that growth, creativity and life can and must follow the death and destruction promised by the First Evil.
Buffy has again and again, turned away, denied and dismissed the darkness inside her. She dismisses and ignores the First Slayer. Buffy tells her that she doesn't sleep on a bed of bones (which is reminiscent of the necklace of skulls worn by Kali). She told Dracula that the thrall had gone out of their relationship. She refuses the dark power offered her by the Shadowmen. These are all symbolic re-enactments of something occurring inside of her. Many posters made the point that Buffy was refusing power that was already inside of her, why not get some more? I think the point is, that in Get It Done, Buffy was rejecting once again, her Slayer half. But only in spirit, because she cannot tear her body and spirit asunder. The two halves are not easily made separate. I think that Buffy will finally meet the challenge and transcend it with her usual panache and creativity. Perhaps the Slayer is just a crucible, where dark and light are mixed, to powerful effects. The First Evil is just undifferentiated darkness, separate from light, split, not transcendent. Perhaps within her, the Slayer has the ability to 'connect' the fault line. And the fault line could be the hell mouth.
It seems that she and the First Evil are uniquely connected. But the nature of that connection, and the ultimate conclusion of this new challenge to Buffy is surely up in the air. While Joss Whedon takes resonances from myths and narratives, he doesn't necessarily follow through to the conclusion.
In its very self, BtVS, with its use of violence, destruction, and darkness to promote positive values, in its dark creativity, its playfulness, it embodies the very spirit that Buffy, Last Guardian, First Slayer, and First Evil draw upon. It seems fitting that the Grrr Argh monster is the one that the First Evil summons. If it were not for the Hellmouth, if not for Buffy's violent tendencies, if not for the Vampires and the demons and zombies, we wouldn't have had any stories. The First Evil is going all out to give us an ending we won't forget.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 60
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
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Kali and the Slayer Line [part 3 of 3] -- LittleBit [the caboose of the RanRahBit train], 17:57:17 03/18/03 Tue
"First, there is the earth."
"... then there come the demons."
"After demons, there come men. Men find a girl."
"The men took the girl to fight the demons ... all demons."
"They chained her to the earth. And then ... and then ..."
"... something about darkness."
- Get it Done -
Darkness. The Slayer, once fully human, was imbued with the energy, spirit and heart of a demon to make her a Warrior against demonkind. Adding shadows to the light. Kali, the Black Goddess, was also created, on the battlefield itself from the Goddess Durga, to fight the demon Raktabija. Raktabija, from whose blood dripping on the earth demons would rise. Kali defeats the demon by preventing the blood from reaching the ground, by taking it into herself, and draining his body dry. The Slayer, while fighting all demons, is most directed toward the vampire, the demon whose blood when drunk by a nearly depleted human will cause a new vampire to rise, from the grave, from the earth. When slain, the vampire turns to dust, in effect all moisture, all blood, is drained from the body. There is now darkness within the Slayer, a darkness that gives her the power to stand against the demons, to withstand evil. This darkness becomes all the First Slayer, Sineya, knows. She exists for only one purpose, to kill. To kill the demons. And that purpose will follow all in her line, as will the shadow, the darkness. Buffy once told Sineya, "You are not the source of me." In this she is both correct and incorrect. While Sineya is the First in the Slayer line, and therefore the anchor, it is the shadow, the demon inheritance that is the source of the Slayer. It is worth noting that the Shaman who met Buffy in the desert are called the Shadowmen, for this is what they most certainly were - those who brought the shadow, the demon spirit and heart, to the Slayer.
"I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound."
"I am destruction. Absolute ... alone."
"The Slayer does not walk in this world."
- Restless -
Sineya, the First Slayer, saw only one aspect of herself - the destroyer, apart, alone. Perhaps this is because she was taken as a girl and formed into the Slayer by use of magics she could neither understand nor withstand. She had the demon forced into her, was taken and consumed by the need to kill, to destroy. Kali also, after her defeat of the demon Raktabija, embarked on a rampage of death and destruction, stopped only when Siva threw himself under her feet, and she recognized upon whom she was dancing her destruction.
Kali was then able to cease her destruction and take on her other aspects. Kali is both destruction and creation, the darkness of her skin signifying that in creating, Kali dissolves all as well. Creation and destruction are not unique, singular acts, and as such do not have any one moment in time, but occur simultaneously in every moment of time. This creation and destruction is reflected in death and rebirth, concepts close to the Slayer line, which experience the 'birth' of a Chosen One upon the death of a Slayer. As each Slayer perishes, the demonic force, the source of the Slayer, passes on to the next one, achieving an immortality of sorts, a linking of the individual Slayers into one long, unbroken line.
"The power of the Slayer and all who yield it.
Last to ancient first, we invoke thee.
Grant us thy domain and primal strength.
Accept us in the power we possess.
Make us mind and heart and spirit joy.
Let the hand encompass us. Do thy will."
"Spiritus ... spirit."
"Animus ... heart."
"Sophus ... mind."
"And Manus ... the hand"
"We enjoin that we may inhabit the vessel - the hand
... daughter of Sineya ... first of the ones ...
We implore thee, admit us,
bring us to the vessel, take us now."
[Adam] "You can't last much longer."
[Buffy, et al] "We can. We are forever."
- Primeval -
The Slayer existed while demons still inhabited the earth, when the vampire was the one demon left, and now when demons from many dimensions walk the earth once more. The line exists through time, another facet of Kali, time which ultimately devours all. There is a continuity to the Slayer, a continual journey on the Wheel, each individual Slayer being born of the last and giving birth to the next, while the (demon) spirit of the Slayer continues from one to the next. But what is the purpose of this continual journey? Does each individual who is Chosen have a purpose beyond that of her destiny? Is there growth within the line, or is there a stagnation which doesn't allow for individual introspection. Is the choice of the new Slayer intentional or chance? I would contend that there is a deliberate choice made, just as the Shadowmen found the girl Sineya to be the First Slayer, the spirit of the Slayer seeks out the one with potential who most closely fits the needs of the time. As much as seems possible, each Slayer is trained and modeled after the Sineya: all energy directed to study of vampires and other demons, to physical training in the combative arts and weapons training, as well as strategy. No time was allowed for personal growth or individuality. But the Slayer is still human, with the Slayer spirit, and as such, remained incomplete with only the Destructive aspect given rein.
"The only reason you've lasted as long as you have
is you've got ties to the world ...
your mum, your brat kid sister, the Scoobies.
They all tie you here but you're just putting off the inevitable."
- Fool For Love -
Buffy has gone against all the rules, insisting on developing those aspects of herself other than destruction. She works within a close-knit group, the Scooby Gang, but is not averse to bringing in a larger group, such as the entire graduating class to stop the Mayor's ascension. Buffy develops not just a working relationship, but emotional ties to her extended family, for this is how she sees them. She refuses to slay those who are doing no harm to the humans. Buffy develops relationships, friendships even, with demons - those she was Chosen to destroy. She makes her own judgments about the rightness of things, yet adheres to a rather strict ethic when it comes to humans. She is the Chosen One, the one who stands "against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness." She is not chosen to pass judgment on humans and rightly refuses to do so, even when circumstances nearly scream for it.
In asserting her individuality, Buffy also begins to look at what it is that makes a Slayer, what gives the Slayer power, where does it originate, what is her source? She is given very tantalizing clues and enigmatic messages to set her upon this path to enlightenment.
[Tara]
"You think you know ... what's to come ... who you are.
You haven't even begun"
[Adam]
"She's uncomfortable with certain concepts.
It's understandable.
Aggression is a natural human tendency.
Though you and me come by it another way."
[Buffy]
"We're not demons."
[Adam]
"Is that a fact?"
- Restless -
[Dracula]
"Perhaps, but you're power is rooted in darkness.
You must feel it."
"There is so much I have to teach you.
Your history, your power ...
what your body is capable of."
"All those years fighting us.
Your power so near to our own ..."
"You think you know ... what's to come ... who you are.
You haven't even begun.
Find it. The darkness. Find your true nature."
- Buffy vs. Dracula -
"It says you cannot be shown. You cannot just watch but you must see.
See for yourself but only if you're willing to make the exchange."
- Get It Done -
After calling on the primeval power of the First Slayer and the Slayer line, Buffy is met in her dream by Tara who is holding the Tarot card 'Manus', two hands crossed, one open, one fisted. Buffy tells her she's never going to use those. And Tara gives her the first cryptic indication that she doesn't know who or what she is, or what is coming. She sees Riley and Adam, in human form, who suggests that she, as he, may be demon. Following this, she encounters Dracula, who seems to know quite a bit about the Slayer, about the line and her power. He rather chillingly warns her of her ignorance about that aspect of herself, using the exact same words Buffy heard from Tara in her dream. Buffy determines that she needs to know more about herself and the origin of the Slayer, but events intervene and the quest is seemingly abandoned. Until it comes back full force in the Shadow play. Buffy is given the chance to see for herself, if she's willing to make the exchange. But what exchange is this? The Slayer may enter the land where the Shadowmen await only if a demon takes her place in this world? Or perhaps, she must be willing to exchange a portion of her humanity for the demon spirit/heart if she is to truly see what she is, to begin to understand. Possibly, even to see what's to come, since she is given the nightmarish vision of the Turok-han horde only after she has rejected the power she is told she needs.
At this point, Buffy has moved in complete opposition to Sineya. While both follow the destiny of the Slayer, Sineya embraced the darkness at the expense of her humanity where Buffy has rejected the darkness in order to fully retain her humanity. The question is, however, must the one supplant the other? I believe that the two must be integrated, that one cannot force the other out. Buffy needs to stop fearing what the darkness might mean. Fear of this literal inner demon, and what impact it will have on her life if she accepts it and integrates it as part of her is paralyzing rather than empowering her. The current Slayer, Faith, is finding much the same issue at the moment - fear that she will not be able to contain the demon if she allows it to emerge. But what does Buffy fear?
[Sineya]
"No ... friends! Just the kill.
We ... are ... alone!"
- Restless -
[Dracula]
"They will not find you.
We are alone.
Always alone."
- Buffy vs. Dracula -
[Holden]
"Oh, it makes every kind of sense.
And it all adds up to you feeling alone.
But Buffy, everyone feels alone.
Everybody is, until you die."
- Conversations With Dead People -
As the Slayer, Buffy has surrounded herself with friends, and has maintained her family in defiance of what the proper protocol for a Slayer was considered to be. But the closeness she felt and the emotional bonds that have been forged have been tested severely. She has found herself at odds with nearly everyone: trying to stop Willow from killing and then destroying the world, feeling Xander's disgust over Spike (and previously over Angel), having Giles leave when she was still emotionally fragile, Dawn alternating needing and rejecting her. What kind of person would she be if she embraced the darkness within? Would they love her, or reject her? Again, both Buffy and Faith face this dilemma. What they don't realize is that their wholeness is both the darkness and the humanity. That the two can exist in harmony not in opposition. Each contains all the aspects of the Goddess, destruction, creation, mercy, love, motherhood. Each contains the multitudes, and each needs to acknowledge this.
[Spirit Guide]
"You think you're losing your ability to love.
. . .
You're afraid that being the Slayer means losing your humanity.
. . .
You are full of love.
You love with all your soul.
It's brighter than the fire ... blinding.
That's why you pull away from it.
[Buffy]
"I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?"
[Spirit Guide]
"Only if you reject it.
Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain.
Love ... give ... forgive.
Risk the pain. It is your nature.
Love will bring you to your gift."
- Intervention -
The line has evolved since Sineya was made the First Slayer. Buffy has taken it possibly further than it has ever been taken. Perhaps that is why she was Chosen. To help the Slayer line move forward, to reach closer to the enlightenment we all seek in one way or another. Kali may also be seen as creating worlds out of the ashes from the fire of Divine Consciousness. The action of Kali is oriented toward spiritual evolution. Those who pass her tests are the spiritual heroes, and have the grace of the Goddess on their side. Buffy could be said to have reached this point in The Gift, when in the moment that she made her choice she did so with a spiritual clarity, a transcendence, in which she embraced not only the love she felt for Dawn, but also her gift, death. She was rewarded with something akin to Nirvana, an extinction of desire and self. She was content that all was well and all were safe, and had no awareness beyond that. In Buffy's case though, this was a less permanent reward, due to both the concern and the neediness of her friends. They mistakenly assumed she was being tortured in a hell rather than rewarded in a heaven, and through their intervention, she was brought back to this dimension from her higher plane.
Buffy and Faith will both need to conquer their fear of themselves and their peculiar heritage, allowing the darkness to become a part of them before either can successfully stand against the First Evil, who uses fear to create doubt and despair. Once they accept all the aspects of the Goddess within, they can continue the most interesting spiritual journey of the Slayer.
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Fixed the dropped tag 3 times and which post does Voy take? -- LittleBit [who just wasn't prevailing against Voynok], 18:30:35 03/18/03 Tue
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Re: It's OK if Masq doesn't fix it here... -- aliera, 08:56:13 03/23/03 Sun
...we'll catch it in the archiving process.
Dropping a tag is like an ATPo Rite of Passage! ;-)
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Faith & 'Consequences' -- Scroll, 17:34:53 03/19/03 Wed
Just thought I'd mention that "Consequences" is on SPACE tonight, and I noticed during the scene when Buffy confesses to Giles about the murder that there is a figurine of Kali sitting on Giles' bookshelf.
I haven't finished reading this thread yet, but I wanted to point this out before I got any further.
[skipping off to read the rest of this wonderful thread]
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Cool!! -- Rahael, 03:21:47 03/20/03 Thu
I'll have to check that out. In Season 1, Giles has a figure of the dancing Siva, Nataraja in his office.
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Huh, maybe it's the Siva I saw, not Kali -- Scroll, 12:10:17 03/25/03 Tue
I'm now trying to remember back and I can't remember if the figure had more than two arms. It was in a dancing pose, I know that. Maybe it was the Siva after all.
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does this mean... -- anom, 01:08:48 03/20/03 Thu
"Buffy contains both the beauty of the flower, and the rage of time. She brings death to the immortal vampires, who have tried to avoid the inevitable. But she also stands for life. Not for nothing is her second name 'Summers'. Not for nothing is her sister, made from her, called Dawn."
..Dawn is an avatar of Buffy?
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Re: does this mean... -- Rahael, 07:29:56 03/21/03 Fri
I think Dawn could be characterised thus, but I also think it's important that Dawn is, in a sense, Buffy's daughter, and she makes Buffy a mother figure, if that makes sense.
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Re: Wild Spirit........some thoughts on myth and direction -- aliera, 05:07:25 03/22/03 Sat
The Nature of the Archetypes
At the outset, it's important to realize that Jung conceived of the archetypes as *autonomous* structures within the collective unconscious. They were pre-existent, self-generating "forces of nature," as he sometimes called them, rather than (as many mistakenly believe) artifacts of cultural experience. For example, he writes: "The archetype is . . . an irrepresentable, unconscious, pre-existent form that seems to be part of the inherited structure of the psyche and can therefore manifest itself spontaneously anywhere, at any time . . . Again and again I encounter the mistaken notion that an archetype is determined [by cultural influences] in regard to its content . . . It is necessary to point out once more that archetypes are not determined [by cultural experience] as regards their content, but only as regards their form and then only to a very limited degree." (_Memories, Dreams, Reflections, pages 392-393)
To illustrate: the "Goddess" archetype is a " pre-existent form" of the "inherited structure of the psyche," but manifests herself in the "psychic costume," as it were, of Kali in India, Athena in Greece, the Shekinah in Kabbalah, and the Virgin Mary in Western Christianity -- all very different in their culturally determined, outer appearance but identical in their inner psychic content. This is no less true of the archetype of the Self. (1)
A rising aspect over the years of the show, perhaps so deeply based that it is not even entirely conscious. I think that although the impulse to deconstruct/segment out the different faces of the gods/goddesses and the writers tendencies to draw comparisons is interesting, I've lost some patience with this aspect of the show and where it seems to be headed. I agree with Caroline on where it seems to be headed. And for me the apparent direction is somewhat repetitious although it wasn't resolved in the past so it is still an open item. That being said I'm of course still eagerly watching hoping to be pleasantly surprised. What I was hoping to see this year would be the completion of the following pattern:
2.1 INDIVIDUATION ACCORDING TO STATIC AND DYNAMIC FORCES
It is also possible to describe the phases of the individuation process according to the manifestations of static and dynamic forces both feminine and masculine acting in the individual's psyche as s/he grows. These four phases can be identified as the following:
Phase I: Static feminine. Ego relates to unconscious as a mother figure, all-giving; and relates to biological mother or mother figure as a "mum's girl/boy." (Spike as a vamp was frozen here.)
Phase II: Static masculine. Recognition of boundaries, rules and stable predictable forms. Relating to father figure in outside world as a "dad's girl/dad's buddy." This phase is also characterized by formal learning/education for the foundation of general skills.
Phase III: Dynamic masculine. Questioning the inflexible with aspirations to stretch limits. Relating in outer life to males/females beyond the family. "Someone else's girl/boy."
Phase IV: Dynamic feminine. Relating to the unconscious as the essential feminine Self, and to the outside world from a position of immense flexible stability. Drive to transcend opposites, to recognize the provisional nature of all similarities and differences. Present in potential from the dawn of consciousness onwards, but seldom properly recognized until the mid-thirties, or later. "Her own girl self."
Each phase is superimposed on the foregoing phases, and each has a contribution to make to a healthy development.(2)
The potentiality for this exists very strongly in the Kali mythology and some of the older goddess myths such as Inanna. Our world, with it's 2000 year (or rather more)emphasis on oppositional forces makes it more difficult to work with this concept as possibly it once existed; but for me it seems closer to what Jung and others were reaching for in individuation, the enabling of wholeness. Kali, Inanna, Sekmet and others also strike me as liminal archetypes, they dance on edges, at the place where one concept meets another and thus can function as mediators. They are transformational goddesses and very apt for both Buffy's effect on those around her and possibly (I hope)for her own journey.
I felt somewhat encouraged in this belief after the story of season six in which there some (I thought) parallels to Inannas journey to the underworld although that could be just perceptual since there were many differences and other mythological references too. Buffy's relationship with Spike and Spike's subsequent journey to the underworld this season looks a little different viewed in this Dummuzi-like myth-light.
I'm not quite sure what the story would have been in this situation (that of Buffy's already completed actualization in a 22 ep season probably doesn't have enough room for conflict...well, it definitely doesn't) and perhaps that is at the root of the story-line we have with the emphasis on use of power and opening now created for a revisiting of the different stages through the appearances of Marley's ghosts and the return of well known casting spoilers, with the inclusion (if Carolyn's spec comes to pass) of a return of the male father?/figure or male-coded evil.
Kali's Myth
Kali most often appears as the destroyer of evil in battle. Kali's warrior aspect is the goddess Durga who is summoned by the gods to battle the demons. In this battle, Kali appears twice to assist her. Early on, the demons approach Durga with their threatening weapons and thus provoked, Durga becomes angry, and suddenly the goddess Kali springs forth from her forehead, ready for battle. She tears and crushes the demons. Later in the battle, Durga summons Kali to help defeat the demon Raktabija (one who arises from the seed of his own blood). He has the ability to clone himself instantly whenever a drop of his blood falls to the ground; so wounding him only multiplies him. Kali destroys the demon by sucking his blood away.
It is crucial to clarify one important aspect of the Parvati/Kali split I have discussed so far. In Hindu mythology, these two aspects of Shiva's feminine potentiality are part of a whole. This whole is Shakti, the archetypal feminine force or energy. (When Shakti is united and balanced with Shiva, the archetypal masculine form or template, a wholeness of personality is achieved.) These domestic/martial aspects of the feminine are often split and projected off onto a suitable psychological twin, who carries the disavowed aspects of this Shakti continuum. (3)
Shakti is still what I am looking for for Buffy and what I am thinking that we need on the whole as a culture (that is perhaps expected too much from a show, even Joss's show). The breaking apart or deconstruction is a necessary aspect it seems of our consciousness. Break it done into more easily digestible parts and thereby come to a better understanding of the the what and the why and the how of it. This is I think the easier part though. The more difficult part is the reconstruction towards a better "way". What happens after the big moments, the big battles.
KALI
Kubler-Ross and other psychotherapists (especially the practitioners of Gestalt therapy and Re-evaluation Counseling) insist on our need to ventilate, externalize, or discharge these feelings, either through tears, rageful yelling, or symbolic destroying. Kali of the fearsome form is the patroness of such healing. Kali emanates from the warrior goddess in times of peril, and like a bloodthirsty whirlwind slays the demons of ignorance which conflict the human mind. In her greatest of such archetypal battles, Lord had to throw himself at her feet to halt her., she calmed and brought the universe back to life, as symbolized by Shiva's enigmatic smile. Her dance of destruction is ultimately the destruction of evil, and seekers who throw themselves at her feet are reborn out of pain into vitality, spontaneity, and appreciation of the full joy and beauty of existence. (4)
I think this is still what I am hoping for the end of the show. Many thanks to everyone in this thread and great series of posts, quite thought provoking!
"Whenever sacred duty decays
And chaos prevails,
Then, I create
Myself, Arjuna.
To protect men of virtue
And destroy men who do evil
To set the standard of sacred duty,
I appear in age after age."
Bhagwad Gita, Chapter 4, Para 7-8
****
(1)Yakov Leib, http://www.kheper.net/topics/Jung/Job/6-1.htm
(2)www.gatewaystobabylon.com/essays/inannahelsinki.html INANNA/ISHTAR - THE NON-MATERNAL AS AN ARCHETYPE OF FEMININE INTEGRITY By Lishtar (Dr. Roseane Lopes) poster presented in the 47e Rencontre Assyriologique - Helsinki, Finland - July 2nd to 6th 2001.
(3)http://www.cgjungpage.org/articles/911bedi.htmlThe Archetypal Dimension of the New York Terrorist Tragedies of 911 By Ashok Bedi, M.D.
(4) http://www.sacredsource.com/kali.html
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Re: Wild Spirit........some thoughts on myth and direction -- Random, 08:24:03 03/23/03 Sun
That's wonderful. I especially liked the liminal archetypes...it, perhaps, sums up exactly my feelings on Buffy, both historically and in this current season. Dancing at the edge, not only between creation and destruction but between her personal identity and the imposed role of the Slayer -- in that perspective, BtVS seems to assume a grander dimension. In retrospect, the show has been leading up to this moment with remarkable coherency of the range of the past 7 years. Journey's end. It was the things that shaped them, Buffy and the Scoobies alike that brought us to this point.
So Buffy externalizes the Kali within...and yet the Buffy within is already externalized. Thus the achievement of balance, for when one is externalized and one internalized, they cannot operate in conjunction quite as efficiently. There will always be translation problems.
Thanks for your additions to, and expansions on, the ideas. Much food for thought. I need to think long and hard about Shakti
~Random
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Great post! -- Caroline, 12:11:03 03/24/03 Mon
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Re: Wild Spirit........(Spoilers for aired Season 7 eps) -- lunasea, 13:29:42 03/24/03 Mon
Dracula: All those years fighting us. Your power so near to our own... (Cuts his arm with a fingernail till blood wells up) ...and you've never once wanted to know what it is that we fight for? (Holds his arm out to Buffy) Never even a taste?
A taste of blood that sends flashing images through her mind, images of the The First Slayer. Blood coursing through the body. Marti Noxon says that when Buffy drinks from Dracula, she is in fact drinking her own. Dracula emerges from within her, and Dracula articulates a fear that becomes more pressing for her as events hurtle toward the Gift. A hunter whose darkness rivals her prey. Buffy fears that she is more monstrous than anything she slays.
Is she correct? At the season end, her fears, and our fears are dismissed. Buffy burns with love, she is open, not closed. But what if both of these descriptions are true? What exactly is meant by 'death is her gift'?
Vampires don't have their own blood. They live off the blood of others. When they sire, they drain the victim and then that blood is flowing through them. When the victim drinks, s/he is drinking their own blood, filtered through the vampire.
What does a vampire fight for? That blood, that connection to life that they no longer have, but become more aware of. Her power is NEAR Dracula's. A slayer doesn't have vamp blood. When Dawn is made from Buffy's blood, she doesn't become Slayer. What makes a Slayer is the demon essence. It isn't her blood.
A slayer needs her blood to be human. It allows her to have that connection to life that vamps have to feed to get. Buffy's power comes from that connection that she has and vamps have to feed to get. What is that connection, her nature, love, give and forgive.
Buffy isn't the First Slayer. We know how the First Slayer was made, but we still don't know about subsequent slayers. Buffy was "chosen." How? Why? (and why do I get the feeling that we won't find out until the final episode which is titled "Chosen) By whom?
I keep thinking about what JM said about the season finale "It is going to make you love more." I don't see how any of these dark heart of the feminine models would do this.
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Well, I see Love central to the Dark Feminine, to the dark mother. -- Rahael, 00:30:32 03/25/03 Tue
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Re: ok the night just got hugely better...prinnnnting! ;-) -- aliera, 18:16:46 03/18/03 Tue
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Wonderful essays!! Printing...and preserving the thread until I can respond! -- s'kat, 20:31:58 03/18/03 Tue
From a quick scan? Great job!!! And thanks RanRahBit for the essay goodness...been looking forward to this one for a while now.
Also no tags dropped that I could see on my screen...so it was fixed.
Hope to respond later in greater depth! Hopefully this will survive until I can.
SK
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Essential Reading. Keeping thread alive, so other mythologists can comment... -- cjl, 21:13:21 03/18/03 Tue
Buffy definitely needs to come to terms with the Dark Feminine. But I wonder, RanRahBit--she's also extremely confused as to how to relate to the Masculine. In CWDP (re-aired tonight), she confesses to be completely clueless about how to relate to men, how to maintain a healthy relationship. Does the myth of Kali and her mate give us any clues how Buffy will break through emotionally? Will coming to terms with her multiple roles as female and warrior solve the problem, or are other epiphanies required?
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A crucial question CJL -- Rahael, 02:47:50 03/19/03 Wed
The masculine, in the shape of Siva stops Kali's rampage. But this season end, will the masculine be external to Buffy, or *internal* to her?
That's what I've been thinking about - I have no idea how ME could depict this, if they were to do it - but Joss tends to play around with resonances, doesn't always follow patterns all the way.
I'm going to see what they do and then fanwank it to fit ;)
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Love is the answer -- manwitch, 06:42:40 03/23/03 Sun
I think it will be internal. It will be buffy who lays down and calms the destructive dance. Of course she will have help. But it will be Buffy that does it, ultimately.
The union of Shakti with Siva (which is the fulfillment of chakra 7) is love. When siva lays down, that is an act of love. Ultimately, Buffy's victory will be about love, in its purest state, which is both pure joy and beauty, and complete destruction. Love destroys ego, and in so doing it destroys conceptions of right and wrong, good and evil, it destroys "otherness."
I don't know if I would go so far as to say that Spike is the Siva role, but he certainly is representative of everything Buffy needs to get over.
But in a particular sense, Buffy is the only character on the show, so I think this victory must be internal. And yet, as soon as I write that I see the flaw in that statements emphasis on individuality and isolation.
I sometimes think that this is going to end with Buffy achieving the union of her shakti with shiva, and snapping out of her psychological journey, and leaving her little mental institution as a happy and fully functional young woman.
As we all would if we could resolve our psyches needs and fears into pure love.
Anyways, a very interesting series of posts, that I very much enjoyed. A lot to digest, a lot for me to learn from. My only suggestion would be to more explicitly throw love into it, because I suspect its relevant.
I don't personally believe that either the First Slayer or the Shadowmen are the "source" of Buffy. She is perfectly right to say so. Her source comes from way beyond them. Even Siva is part of Vishnu's dream. What is the source of Vishnu? And what is the source of that?
The source of buffy, like the source of us all, is what is pointed to by the last of all metaphors. It can be experienced perhaps, in love, but not known.
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From the individual to the universal -- Rahael, 05:24:48 03/25/03 Tue
Good points. dH suggested to me that perhaps one conclusion could be that Buffy and Faith give up Slayerness, and share it among everyone, among humanity, so we all have potential, we all have the power and the duty to exercise it wisely and well.
So that it is an internal conflict/resolution that has implicatons for the universal.
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Re: Love is the answer -- lunasea, 10:51:26 03/25/03 Tue
Beautifully worded. Your posts along with a few others have really helped me work out something that I have been chewing on for a while and "Release" really brought to the surface.
The archetype, the formless counterpart to instinct that lies in our psyche, that source of us all, gives rise to everything. It can't be "known" but it can be felt. Once we start to give it ideas and words and bring it into the realm of "knowing" we limit it. It is limitless, so in this limiting, we change it and it is no longer what it was.
What the archetypes are depends on what your view of our instincts are. If we have light and dark sides, then we have light and dark instincts or ones that blur the lines. If we really aren't good/evil, right/wrong/ self/other, then that is what the archetypes are. Just energy that drives us.
What we consider light and dark comes from that energy. Our focus should be on that energy rather than the form it takes.
I don't see love destroying anything. In order for it to do that, there has to be something to destroy. It removes illusions so that we can see clearly. With no otherness, there is no destruction. The dark archetypes that are about this destruction, for good or ill, still acknowledge other to be destroyed. It is the perception of the unenlightened of enlightenment.
The victory will be internal and then external. First comes the realization and then the expression.
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I've got a few ideas on this...(spec only, no future spoilers) -- Caroline, 07:07:39 03/19/03 Wed
Not just in Hindu mythology but many other variants, the way that the dark feminine is placated is through the rationality and compassion of the masculine force. In psychological terms, that means that the instinctual power of the unconscious is contained and held by the force of consciousness. In my Mother's Milk is Red Today thread, I stated that Buffy would have to placate and contain the dark feminine with the help of a significant masculine figure. For Kali, Shiva performs this role. For Ereshkigal, Enki's mourners do this (Enki is the god of wisdom). For Buffy, it will have to be done on multiple levels. I think that not only does she have to incorporate Spirit, Mind and Heart into her Hand (which I think was implied in OnM and Sol's wonderful post last week) she also has to come to terms with the erotic feminine. The problems that Buffy makes manifest in CWDP with the masculine principle will (I speculate) manifest in some sort of masculine evil figure (going with the whole theme of internal demons becoming manifest in the buffyverse. I hope he comes soon 'cos I've thought this for a while and we are running out of eps! But I would be completely off-base). In finding the ways to defeat this, it's becoming clearer to me that Buffy will also go through a process of coming to terms with the erotic feminine, with Spike being the most likely candidate for the Shiva role.
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Regarding the Masculain, Shiva, (future spec/spoilers only up to Storyteller) -- s'kat, 11:07:47 03/19/03 Wed
The problems that Buffy makes manifest in CWDP with the masculine principle will (I speculate) manifest in some sort of masculine evil figure (going with the whole theme of internal demons becoming manifest in the buffyverse. I hope he comes soon 'cos I've thought this for a while and we are running out of eps! But I would be completely off-base). In finding the ways to defeat this, it's becoming clearer to me that Buffy will also go through a process of coming to terms with the erotic feminine, with Spike being the most likely candidate for the Shiva role.
I feel this happening as well on some level and expect we'll see it be a center theme of the next four episodes, starting with next week's.
I wrote a long post on this a moment ago and voynak ate it.
Ugh. Note, copy before sending!!So will try to duplicate and expand on my thoughts here.
Last night in rewatching CwDP and in reading the series of essays RanRahBit posted this morning...something occurred to me.
We have aspects of the Goddess represented by the slayer.
What about the male or masculain entity that the slayer fears yet also embraces her?
Shiva dances with Kali, Parvati aspect of the Goddess domesticates him, Kali aspect dances with him, Durga aspect demonizes him, and when he lies down, he stops Kali's destructive dance. (correct me if I misunderstood, never really studied the Hindu mythology...)
The representations of the male in Btvs appear to be in a spectrum from human (harmless) to demon/human (Shiva - dangerous but also domesticated) to demonic:
1. Xander - the harmless male, almost emasculated in some respects, he offers friendship, guidance, clear seeing, he's the friend, and represents the fear of lack of commitment as seen by his leaving of Anya at the altar.
Also the aspect of male as sidekick or servant - notice in B vs. D = Xander becomes Drac's servant while remaining Buffy's sidekick. It is in that episode, in fact, that Xander finally stands up and declares he won't be anyone's buttmonkey any more - a fitting phrase - since in a way he's been Buffy's buttmonkey since he met her. Being Drac's knocks him away from this course and he begins to set his own path outside of Buffy as neither watcher or sidekick, but carpenter, builder - a traditionally masculain role - the role in which the male can in a way create, he builds upon what the mother gives him. Yet by the same token Xander fights his own derogatory view of himself, the idea that he has no power and cannot create, only build - and women appear to exist to emasculate him - as seen through all his relationships with them.
2. Andrew - the mushroom. The construct. Aesexual, he seems to have no power and no harm. He constructs himself based on what others tell him. A cipher. It's not until Buffy forces him to see himself and look past the stories he's telling, that he actually becomes more than just a construct, a storyteller. He is the harmless, emasculated, powerless male on the surface, yet if pushed in the right way could become dangerous - and does in fact both trigger the seal and turn it off by his actions. He seems to look at the female as a mystery he can't comprehend.
3. Spike - he appears to be in the Shiva role. He has Xander's attributes in human form, but also Rajakabat's in demonic form. Like Rajakabat - he creates more of himself by dropping blood or sucking blood. Like Rajakabat when he is destroyed he becomes dust. He is both human and demon.
He can be the demonic Rajakabat who drives Kali wild or even causes Kali's creation from Parvati due to his presence, he can act as Shiva who dances with Kali and pacifies her with his prostation and self-sacrifice, or he can be domesticated by Parvati.
In CwDP - I thought it was interesting that they chose to
have Spike sire the people he killed not just kill them.
The destroy-create motif for the male. And he does both male and female. Except for the male - the creation/destroy is like Rajakabat in which he can only create more like himself - more undead things. It's not creation really.
It's sort of the inverse of it. Buffy dies herself and creates life (passing on the slayer line) or she can create life from life (a la Nikki) or it can be created from her (Dawn). Buffy can create like Kali or Parvati. Spike can only create from death and only by creating more death.
In CwDP- Sleeper - we see that another entity is controlling Spike. Spike is battleing himself. He is not in control. What is in control here - may in fact be the demon.
The destructive part of himself. Is that demon being controlled? Well yes. But how exactly? I hypothesize that the FE is controlling Spike using that one ingredient that informed the demon in Spike. Going back to what Darla tells Angelus in The Prodigal - "all that informed us as humans, informs the demons we become". If Angelus strikes out to destroy that which represents the desires of his father figures or as a means of hurting his father a la a fallen Lucifer striking out against god, then Spike the inverse of Angel strikes out to appease and show his devotion to the mother. He brings her gifts. When we see him with Drusilla - this idea is repeated time and again -" I brought her pretty girls and still she forsaked me" he tells Willow in Lover's Walk. And in School Hard - he brings Sheila to her.
The reason soullessSpike goes and gets the soul is to show his devotion to Buffy, who has somehow taken over Dru's role in his devotion. Spike himself states in Sleeper - "God help me, It's all about you Buffy...It's still all about you..." Spike's achillees heel appears to be his devotion to the mother/lady-love. This is the heel that the FE corrupts and triggers. The FE grabs the son/male's devotion and twists it using it against him. Spike will do anything for the mother ...reminds me a little of Norman Bates in Psycho. What happens if we twist that devotion?
Spike ironically is fighting the very thing that sent him hunting a soul, the very reason he decided to become the better man - his devotion. Ironically, to become that better man, he may have to against his mother and find out what is right on his own. Which, correct me if I'm wrong,
may be what Shiva does when he stops dancing with Kali and prostrates himself? Or does he ever do it?
4. The Evil Representative of the Male that has yet to appear. This probably will be some sort of representative of male power in society, either religious (a la The Master), political (a la the Mayor), or scientific/military (a la Adam). The Male who wishes to subjugate the female to it's will.
The idea of the evil male - reminds me a lot of my own studies in myth, particularly my struggle with certain themes in those studies. There is a theme that one of my professors was into that I struggled with and that's the view that terrified of the mother goddess and the female, the male created negative images of her to repress and suppress her power. He split her in half as virgin and whore. In her whorish aspect - which in some tales takes on the face of Kali, she is an evil seductress, filthy, into sex and nothing else, a corrupter and in her virgin aspect - which tends to be the Christian Virgin Mary or the good mother - she gives birth without sex, she is maternal, clean, surrounded by light. Afraid of the female ability to bleed without dying and to bleed from the same place that life emerges - men found ways to make this event bad, dirty, disgusting, something that should not be discussed in polite circles. Women in some cultures were removed from the male presence when they menstruated and sex was NEVER considered at this point. Menstruation was considered the Curse - the mark of Eve. And if you watch some westernized versions of Kali - she is depicted as the blood drinker and evil. (See Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom, or other movies of similar ilk.) The male view is the destroyer/creator must be controlled - must be contained.
Nature cannot be allowed to burst free. This view feeds into the female fears - first of the female's own power and what she's been told is it's dark nature. (Notice in Btvs that the only ones who tell Buffy and Willow that their power is dark are men. Giles. Dracula. The Shadowmen. Adam. It's not women who tell them this, but the men who wish to control them.) The female fears the male's desire to contain her energy, the male's view that it is dirty, that she is dirty and because of this, he will banish her, reject her - leaving her to be all alone in the desert without him. The male fears his own castration, emasculation by her power - fear of having his primal energy being domesticated, of not being the one in power - so he seeks to contain and control her instead. She fears being cast-off. He fears being castrated or strode upon.
At least that was the theory I was struggling with in 1988 when I collected and studied celtic myths and ghost stories relating to these images.
How does this relate to Btvs?
First it is interesting that the creator of Btvs and supposed feminist is a man. Joss Whedon. And most of his writers are men. There are only three women writing for Btvs and they've written the least episodes this year.
Not sure this means anything, except I find it interesting.
Second - this year, we keep seeing allusions to men controlling or attempting to control women. Their fears of the female and her fears of the male braced against each other. We also have each character's internal fears of what they are represented by an external demon. And those fears have some bearing on this whole battle between the fears of the sexes.
We have Xander fighting his fears of the demonic woman, her attraction to him and his fear that he has been emasculated by her in some way, rendering him powerless - or powerless beyond his ability to build windows.
We have Spike fighting his fears of himself, his own demonic nature and bloodlust, his fear that he is nothing but a lowly worm stalking the female prey, the object of his devotion. That he can never obtain her love and respect. But will forever be doomed to seek it, prostrating himself on her altar, doing dances for her, letting her pull his strings - but forever a schmuck under her control.
Not his own man.
We have Dawn fighting her fear that she is powerless, nothing. And can never live up to what her sister is.
We have Willow fighting her own fears of power and control.
We have Andrew fighting his fear that his nothing but a construct, a mushroom, no identity, no will of his own. Just a storyteller.
We have Anya fighting similar fears to Andrews - that she has no power, no identity, she is a victim of the male fears, subjucated and controlled by them. Like Buffy, men have molded her into a weapon to do their will. Unlike Buffy she has been prostituted to the cause, losing almost all her own will and identity in the process - taking on the identity of the roles men have given her. First Olaf's role of good dutiful wife and betrayed wife/jealous scorned wife, then D'Hoffryn's of vengeance prostitute/weapon, then Giles of shopkeeper and researcher, then Xander's of girlfriend/fiancee and once again scorned wife/lover circling back to Olaf and D'Hoffryn all over again. Her first act of empowerment is her decision in Selfless to take back what she's done and hunt her own path - an act that motivates D'hoffryn to torture and attempt to kill her.
People keep asking why D'H keeps sending people to kill Anya, I think the answer is actually very simple - he does it because she finally after a thousand years did something a woman shouldn't do, she stood against him and for herself.
She said I want to take back the wish. I no longer choose to be your weapon and dutiful daughter/whore. I no longer choose to be Xander's girlfriend. Or Giles' shopkeeper. I choose to be myself whoever that self might be. And that one act scared the heck out of D'Hoffryn.
The allusions to men controlling women:
1. D'Hoffryn and anya: seen in bits and pieces up until Selfless, then later with the minions sent to kill her.
2. RonnietheWorm from Tremors. Ronnie stalks Nancy, as a worm, he kills Nancy's dog and almost kills her. The male beastie.
3. Gnarl the male demon who feeds of Willow's skin.
4. Principal Wood who hires Buffy under false pretenses as his employee and a guidance counselor.
5. The Watcher Council who gets blown up. Watcher Council who wishes to control the slayers and does not tell Buffy what is going on.
6. RJ and the jacket that casts a spell on all the women in HIm, driving them to do things for HIm.
These motifs have been repeated throughout the series, but appear to be coming to a head again this season. The male and female fears coming up against each other.
Then Third we have the male authority figures, and my hunch is the next male evil while be representative of some sort of authority.
1. The Shadowmen
2. The Watcher Council
3. Ripper Giles - Henry Higgins to Buffy's Eliza? The kindly professor with that dark edge? The reluctant father fighting the reluctant watcher? The ends justify the means approach the Watcher Council clearly advocates?
4. Robin Wood - the Principal raised by a Watcher
The authority figures seem to represent the traditional male desire to control the female and her fear of the father/male rejection. Remember from the beginning Buffy has expressed the fear of Daddy leaving her because she is disgusting and rude - (see Nightmares S1) and Daddy does depart completely by the end of Season 2, in fact we only see him again in dreams in Weight of The World and Normal Again. Never in the flesh. Men always appear to leave Buffy, that is her greatest fear realized. In seasons past, she has worried about Giles' rejection of her. In Grave when she meekly tells him what's been happening, his laughter comes as a relief. In Innocence - she worries he is horribly disappointed. Buffy's fear of the male is as complex as the male fear of her.
Just some thoughts to add to discussion. Hopefully voy will let it post.
Great essays and posts all.
SK
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Re: Regarding the Masculain, Shiva, (future spec/spoilers only up to Storyteller) -- Caroline, 14:20:04 03/19/03 Wed
You present some interesting ideas which I'd like to explore further in a mythological/psychological perspective.
First it is interesting that the creator of Btvs and supposed feminist is a man. Joss Whedon. And most of his writers are men. There are only three women writing for Btvs and they've written the least episodes this year. Not sure this means anything, except I find it interesting.
Second - this year, we keep seeing allusions to men controlling or attempting to control women. Their fears of the female and her fears of the male braced against each other. We also have each character's internal fears of what they are represented by an external demon. And those fears have some bearing on this whole battle between the fears of the sexes.
The Evil Representative of the Male that has yet to appear. This probably will be some sort of representative of male power in society, either religious (a la The Master), political (a la the Mayor), or scientific/military (a la Adam). The Male who wishes to subjugate the female to it's will.
I'm not really sure what you are trying to get at here - concerning feminism and the dramatic representation of masculine and feminine energies. If one postulates that the buffyverse is Buffy's psychological landscape, one sees that the story if far more complex than female empowerment. The battle of masculine and feminine that you outline is the battle within Buffy made manifest - psychologically, it is the battle of the instinctual roots of the individual and their rationality, the battle between the conscious and unconscious, the battle of passion and reason. It is the battle of every individual because these energies exist within all of us, male and female.
My thinking is that the FE is the manifestation of Buffy's denied feminine and that there will be a male counterpart as a manifestation of Buffy's uncomfortable relationship with her own masculine energy. All these energies need to be understood and balanced by each of these characters. We have seen elements in this season of males attempting to control females - this is representative of the conscious attempt of the psyche to stifle rather than understand its unconscious and instinctual roots. We have also seen the reverse. Both energies are required for creation - we are told explicitly in Hindu mythology that Kali's feminine energy animates Shiva's masculine energy. In these terms, I think that it is hard to argue that the show is anti-feminist. I also think that while it is highly interesting that earlier versions of Middle Eastern and European myth show the feminine goddesses ascendant (or in some cases contained both masculine and feminine energies with the feminine aspect ascendant) later images have masculine gods ascendant (and in some cases masculine gods also being able to create parthenogenically). This tells us much about the psychology or the societies that created those myths and the things that they valued and how their psychology developed but I'm not sure that it tells us anything about BtVS in terms of its feminism. And even though I have read many feminists argue that these developments in myth show us that there was once a utopian matriarchy at the beginning of history that was overtaken by patriarchal notions - I just don't think that there is enough evidence for this but it does make for fun speculation.
Just to take some of the examples you gave and interpret them within the perspective presented above:
Willow is fighting her own fears of power and control
I would say that Willow let her feminine power take over a la Kali at the end of S6. She is using all her rational, conscious efforts to control this instinctual feminine power. She has not come to terms with it - the effects of her instinctual power overwhelmed her rational capacity.
We have Dawn fighting her fear that she is powerless, nothing. And can never live up to what her sister is.
I see Dawn very differently this season - she fought off the FE in CWDP, she translates Sumerian and does demon research that even last year was denied her (OMWF), she backs up Buffy in taking care of the potentials and she has come to terms with the fact that she is not a potential. She knows that she can never live up to what Buffy is but in her situation with Amanda at the school, she does live up to her humanity. She's really balancing her potential well.
We have Xander fighting his fears of the demonic woman, her attraction to him and his fear that he has been emasculated by her in some way, rendering him powerless - or powerless beyond his ability to build windows.
Xander does have the capacity to attract the demonic other. Here we have a situation where it is the female who is the predator and the male the victim. It says a lot about Xander's own fear of his unconscious power.
People keep asking why D'H keeps sending people to kill Anya, I think the answer is actually very simple - he does it because she finally after a thousand years did something a woman shouldn't do, she stood against him and for herself.
(Not sure what d'herblay has to do with this but...) I think that even though D'Hoffryn is a male, he rules the power of vengeance, a very feminine power. And he knows how to wield it well, as his ending of Halfrek's existence showed in Helpless. Anya, in her desire to stop being a vengeance demon was actually exerting a conscious, masculine power to end the horrific consequences of her instinctual roots.
I'm not really seeing your idea that there has been a pattern of males controlling females but rather male and female energy battling it out within each person and made manifest. And I think that the masculine figure that manifests Buffy's discomfort with the masculine within will be aligned in some way with the FE, since that is the manifestation of her discomfort with the feminine within.
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Speculation with casting spoiler only -- Darby, 11:47:37 03/19/03 Wed
I know that Nathan Fillion of Firefly is coming by for multiple episodes - could he fit your prophecy?
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Re: Speculation with casting spoiler only -- Caroline, 10:28:14 03/20/03 Thu
Captain Mal is coming? Don't know if he fits since I don't know what character he will play...
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If you saw him in Dracula 2000 you have the costume the character will wear.....;) -- Rufus, 23:52:29 03/23/03 Sun
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great post, Caroline! -- Rahael, 15:53:57 03/19/03 Wed
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Printing, will read when brain fully engaged! -- luna (please save thread), 21:19:51 03/18/03 Tue
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Sleep? Or read it all? Sleep? Or read... -- pr10n, 23:36:25 03/18/03 Tue
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Three cheers -- Tchaikovsky, 01:44:14 03/19/03 Wed
There's something rather trimurti-ish about the posts themselves, three individual aspects which are co-dependent. I won't venture to pronounce which of you is Siva!
Anyway, great posts. If I knew more about the Hindu myths, I might venture a coherent reply, but I think I might be taking an opinion on something I didn't know existed, rather like that item on KdS' checklist.
So I'll just applaud vigorously.
TCH
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Well... -- RanBit (and maybe Rah, I'll let her speak for herself), 19:50:50 03/19/03 Wed
Right there with you. We're as confused as you are.
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Thanks for giving some direction to my own thinking . . . -- pilgrim, 04:50:51 03/19/03 Wed
What I was coming up with was that Buffy returned (or was returned) from the dead at the beginning of season six in order to shake up the status quo, to destroy the existing slayer/watcher structure and create something new to replace it. She had finished her work as an individual, she believed she was complete, but she finds herself back on earth. The reason must be for something larger than her own individual mission as a slayer. Then, I got stuck. Your posts, and Just George's from the above thread, are helping me work through my stickiness.
Try this: Buffy and the FE are two aspects of the same consciousness. The FE is the destructive aspect, Buffy is the creative one. They aren't cause and effect--Buffy's coming back didn't cause the FE or give it an opportunity to appear. Instead, Buffy and the FE exist together, are interdependent, and each causes and is caused by the other.
The aspect of uberBuffy that destroys the slayer line, the existing status quo, is the FE. And it destroys with a vengeance, killing little girls, undermining the characters' faith in the natural order by showing them that they can't rely even on their own senses--what they think they see may not be the truth.
But the destruction is necessary to the creation of something new. And the aspect of uberBuffy that creates has been busy this year. She is helping to create a whole new person, in the person of newSpike. She is helping Dawn grow from a girl to a woman. She is creating a safe haven for the potentials and trying to help them realize their potential strength. She is giving strength to Willow, literally from her own body. She is helping Andrew become a new person. She is counseling the kids at the high school.
The creative aspect of uberBuffy also is developing a disturbing tendency to believe that she is the law, she is the ultimate authority, and that this is so because she alone has the power and therefore the responsibility to defeat the FE and protect the slayer line, the status quo. I think creative uberBuffy is going to have to get past this, perhaps first by realizing that the status quo must go (indeed much already has been destroyed, since many girls, watchers, and the council have been killed), and then by finding a way to share the power and the responsbility (we already know that more than one girl can hold slayer powers at once--if two can, why not 200 or 2000). She has not to defeat the FE, but use or channel its (really, her own) destructive power in a way that transforms destruction into creation.
How does creative uberBuffy make the transformation from trying to protect the status quo to participating in its destruction so that a new order can be created? Don't know. But, based on your posts about the role Shiva plays in the Hindu stories, Buffy's three male companions will play important roles. Giles the father, Xander the friend, and Spike the lover. One or more of these may sacrifice himself (physically, emotionally) to bring Buffy to a place of epiphany regarding her ability to embody both creation and destruction. I wonder if Giles the father may have to die (he may already be there), and whether Spike the lover may offer himself for domestication (he's already begun this, hasn't he?). Don't know about Xander.
One other thing: Dawn seems key to the whole problem. She'll be the inheritor of the new creation, the new order. She already seems to reflect or embody aspects of the four main characters--she is learning to fight from Buffy and has shown herself adept at fighting; she works magic in "Conversations with Dead People," boldly and apparently effectively; she has taken on Giles' research role and has his uncanny ability to open a book and put her finger on the needed information; and Xander has acknowledged that she is like him--extraordinarily ordinary. So Dawn isn't passively sitting back to inherit the new order--she seems to be taking part in creating it. There may be some rift coming between her and Buffy, but how that will play into the "out with the old, in with the new" scheme, I wonder.
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Really excellent comments, Pilgrim! -- Rahael, 05:24:23 03/19/03 Wed
Really pulling threads of ideas together, and expressing it with great clarity.
And, of course, the domestication of Spike, just as Parvati domesticates Siva!! I can remember reading complaints about this when the early eps were airing (and I couldn't see them!) - Buffy taking Spike out of the Basement, ordering him even, putting him up at Xander's.
So both the First Evil, and Buffy are necessary, and interpendent forces shaping the characters of the Buffyverse for their challenge. Shaping each other.
As for the rift between Buffy and Dawn - in some sense isn't it necessary that there should be a 'rift' - Dawn was taken out of Buffy, and Dawn has always been in her shadow. Maybe she needs to be impelled to stop worrying so much about her older sister, be a little bit selfish, and find her own destiny.
Maybe Dawn needed to be told that Buffy won't choose her at a crucial point. Maybe the FE's mocking words to Willow in the library helped Willow articulated some dangerously seductive fantasy that Willow had internalised and hadn't realised she had done - so the final result of the visit was life affirming.
Isn't the FE a kind of embodiment of BtVS itself - showing us monsters. And Buffy, with her creative side - slays the monster. She slays, we party.
And out of this, we get a work of art that frames this conflict.
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Here is a little something from the ep 'Him' you may want to remember for Dawn -- Rufus, 00:52:47 03/20/03 Thu
From the Shooting Script of Him.....
Dawn turns, silent tears welling in her eyes.
DAWN
There's no plan. What am I, gonna
compete with you? You're older, and
hotter, you have sex that's rough and
kill people. I don't have any of
that stuff. But if I did this, then,
his whole life he'd know that there
was someone who loved him so much
they'd give up their life.
BUFFY
Oh, Dawn.
DAWN
And it would be true forever. I was
giving him my love for forever. It
was all I had.
This may not make sense now but I feel it will be important in ep 22.
The creative aspect of uberBuffy also is developing a disturbing tendency to believe that she is the law, she is the ultimate authority, and that this is so because she alone has the power and therefore the responsibility to defeat the FE and protect the slayer line, the status quo.
In a few episodes you may rethink the whole "law and ultimate authority" thing.....after all when you have an apocalypse someone has to be charged with the authority to make things right because to let the world be destroyed because you didn't have mortal law to back you up would be...wrong.
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Hmmmm. Tantalizing. -- pilgrim, 03:58:18 03/20/03 Thu
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Interesting... -- Random, 05:44:53 03/22/03 Sat
But there need not be a "charge." Buffy as the chosen warrior has ostensibly been "charged" with the duty of facing down the incipient evil, but in the end, she chooses her own fate. That, I think, is perhapse the greatest pathos of the Slayer myth...and of the entire Buffyverse. Just as Xander and Dawn are the ones who aren't chosen, yet nevertheless choose to slog through the tedious, dangerous, soul-sucking business of fighting evil every day, so too is Buffy the one who is Chosen, and chooses to accept the calling rather than rebel against it. The crucial moments -- Buffy in PG and The Gift, Dawn in The Gift and in Potential -- are the moments that define them. What we are looking at here, I would say, is the point wherein Dawn and Buffy and all the Scoobies and SiTs reach the crux of law and authority...and transcend them simply by making the necessary choices. They are obliged by a higher moral law, tis true. But they are no more so than any of the other 6 billion people on the planet. The difference: merely opportunity and ability. The FE has waged war on them, and though they are clearly the victims here, they will not merely accept their fates. Law or obligation, it basically comes down to the simple choice to rage against the night.
Invictus.
~Random, hoping this post goes through
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And a mighty 'wow' was sounded -- ponygirl, 10:49:14 03/19/03 Wed
RanRahBit that was great! Helps me shape the mass of thoughts floating around in my head. And wonderfully written and presented, all three.
From the beginning of the series Buffy has existed outside the normal order of things. Is her role to sweep aside the old structures? Or to come to see the value of what has passed, and her own place in the cycle? Or the third way, to fuse all these conflicting aspects into something entirely new?
A bit of an aside, I know Rahael had mentioned that she was reading Sandman - have you come across the character of Destruction yet? Neil Gaiman expressed the relation between creation and destruction through the metaphor of cooking - the original separate components of a dish are changed entirely, destroyed in a sense, to create something different through their fusion. Every act of creation begins with the destruction of the original elements. I found it a really insightful and clarifying take on the whole birth/death cycle and actually helped me to get a handle on Kali for this female spirituality class I was taking at the time. I wish I'd had your essay then, far more enjoyable than the professor's lectures!
Congrats to all on the essay!
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Sandman -- Rahael, 04:04:27 03/20/03 Thu
Ponygirl, I have indeed finished reading Sandman, and I loved it - for exactly the reasons you give above. Also there was the whole theme of art, immortality and mutability that seems to come straight from Romantic poetry that made me feel right at home!
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Re: Sandman -- Tyreseus, 17:48:59 03/22/03 Sat
Yes! I've only picked up the first volume so far (getting the second one today. I'm allowed one volume per paycheck, can't spend all my allowance on comic books) but I'm in your debt Ponygirl (and everyone else who reccomended the series)!!!!
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Buffy's psychological geography (WKCS spoiler) -- Caroline, 11:15:44 03/19/03 Wed
Really beautiful post RanRahBit. I have just a few quick comments to make (the press of work being what it is).
I love Rah's image of the buffyverse representing Buffy's body and mind. It gives me a template to consider some thoughts that have been going around my head lately. The world above is her conscious mind, the world below the unconscious and she has been circling her unconscious above its portal (the hellmouth) for the last 7 years. All the different aspects of Buffy are made manifest in the buffyverse. The conscious world, represented by the high school, has been where she has waged her battles. But given some of the issues she has had with her feminine energy, she has never made the attempt to explore what is down below. I would also say that since Buffy has issues with her feminine energy, there is also an imbalance in the way she deals with masculine energies. I would speculate that this season, there will be a descent by Buffy into the hellmouth as other goddesses in myth have done - such as Kore and Innana - to recover the 'treasure beyond price' that is the gift that the hero not only receives herself but is also a gift to the world. The personal gift to the hero is self-knowledge, a boon to self and all. Like the Grail Knight, she must ask the right question before the palace of knowledge becomes hers.
The Warrior Feminine
In order to be a truly effective warrior - Buffy must have the physical resources (Manus), the intellectual resources (Mind), the compassion and understanding (Heart) and a force that animates all these (Spirit). Buffy must integrates these aspects from those who have assisted her in her role as warrior - Giles, Xander and Willow. To realize her full warrior potential, I would speculate that she must develop those masculine and feminine capacities within herself and fight alone to vanquish the internal demon that has been made manifest this season. I have already argued that the FE is a manifestation of Buffy's denied feminine energy - the consequences of a denial of the feminine is also the inability to come to terms with the masculine. I've already speculated that this uncomfortable masculine energy within Buffy will manifest as a masculine evil figure. Buffy will need to united these energies - she can longer just put a stake through something as in the past and expect that Willow, Giles and Xander will do their usual legwork and backup. She has stayed alive a long time through her connections to them but she must now internalize what they represent within herself.
The Maternal Feminine
Dawn and the potentials give Buffy the opportunity to explore the maternal aspect of Buffy's feminine energy. She is a 'mother' to Dawn, who was created from her and she is the great-grandmother of the potential slayers. She wants to show Dawn the world and she is training and teaching the potentials in the ways of slayers. There are two elements of concern here. We know from CWDP that Dawn is aware that Buffy will not choose her. I cannot help but worry about the consequences of this but find it difficult to speculate what they could be. The second is that while Buffy is a forebear of the potentials, she is not the direct mother, Faith is. I've been rather annoyed by the assumption this season that Buffy's death will mean that one of the potentials is called. What repercussions will occur when Faith returns and sets the record straight?
The Erotic Feminine
Buffy's romantic life has always been a minefield and as we know from CWDP it's because she unconsciously sets up her romantic situations in such as way as to ensure, through her projections, that all her significant male others will leave, as did her father. I would say that, right now, Spike and Angel are the two erotic relationships that she must deal with. She mentioned early in S7 that she loved Angel more than she will ever love anything else on this earth. In S6 she took a walk on the wild side with Spike and now she is in a relationship based on mutual reliance and trust but the relationship is really in limbo. In many ways, Buffy is not able to handle her sexual and emotional erotic center. She only took a walk on the wild side with Spike at a time when her ego defences were down. She had an incredible spiritual experience in heaven but following the heights come the depths (try doing a 7-day silent meditation retreat and see what happens after you go back to the real world!!!). That was why she initiated the relationship with Spike. She saw her erotic core and explored it but she did not have the understanding to accommodate it. She has to heal the original erotic wound (they always leave me) and move to a place where she can pick a partner that is good for her and pick him from conscious choice, not unconscious need to recreate her original erotic wound.
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Shadowkat, Caroline, you never let me down! (vague 7.18 spoiler ahead) -- cjl, 11:48:21 03/19/03 Wed
Great. Stuff. (Pounds the table for emphasis.)
Yes, exactly: "the consequences of a denial of the feminine is also the inability to come to terms with the masculine."
And, by the way, the Evil Male figure? Symbol of the Patriarchy, and all that?
He's coming.
And every bit as Mal-adjusted as you think he is.
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Right there with you CJL -- Rahael, 15:31:02 03/19/03 Wed
table pounding and all!
Excellent posts on this from everyone. (And Anneth, too in JG's thread!)
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Re: Avatars of the Slayer (morcel 1) -- Celebaelin, 19:10:27 03/20/03 Thu
Going to break the post down into sections in the hope of finding the problem ie why Voy won't take this post.
Right, wow, OK, the Awesome Mother thing yes? Brief pause while he reaches for the Ant and Bee Book of Jung and Hindu Mythology for Beginners (expurgated version). At least I now have some vague idea what syncretic purana means (eh? GMO fish?). I think I get where you're coming from RanRahBit (sings RanRahBit, RanRahBit, run, run, run,).
The concept of the hero who must undergo a dangerous Nekyia, or night-sea journey is equated by Jung with 'mid-life' crisis. This is symbolised, in a rather masculine way I think, by daily and annual Solar cycles, its' own life and death if you will (See Summers, B.!). I see no obvious reason that this concept cannot be applied to a heroic journey undertaken at any time, or indeed to 'any and every heroic journey' (yes, that's right, just any old heroic journey you have to make) that lies on the path to individuation but the point is that the trials often involve encountering a devouring sea-monster or feminine figure of some sort (Jonah and the whale, Odysseus and Scylla and Charybdis, Oedipus and the Sphinx). This is considered to be an unconscious image of our mothers from which we must separate to develop as individuals, emerging spiritually 're-born' from the experience of separation. Most of the quotes below are selected from the original posts to support this concept of the nature of Kali in the Life-Death-Rebirth paradigm as it directly applies to most people most of the time. The more literal, biological Life-Death-Rebirth function as regards the the ability to evolve, the ability to reproduce in the face of exhaustible natural resources and the practical aspects associated with the onset of senescence are more in the Gaia/Danu/Gauri aspect, there are others of course but I'm sticking to the theme of threes, be it eyes, aspects, witches or whatever.
As an unconnected observation the Fearsome Mother aspect of Oedipus has nothing to do with incest it seems, that comes later!
Random
"It's about change. About being. About apotheosis. In short, to quote the Mayor, it's about the things that shape us.
Like all mythos, the story of the Slayer harkens to greater themes, more profound hobgoblins of the unconscious. Themes that pervade the Buffyverse can be found in many cultures, in the dreams and fears and beliefs of all humanity."
Rahael
"Kali is the universal mother. It is believed that she goes into the darkness with us, and for us, to swallow our sins, worries and concerns. She can show us how to radically transform our lives by embracing our own darkness, rather than fearing and fleeing from that which haunts us. She can spiritually hack away at the handcuffs that keep us shackled to the hungry ghosts of the past. There comes a point in the process when you must surrender fully to her healing powers, and let her bring you back cleansed, transformed, whole.
(http://www.dollsofindia.com/kali.htm)
the sword of knowledge, that slices through ignorance and destroys false consciousness. She is said to open the gates of freedom with this sword, having cut the bonds that bind human beings.
(http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/amethystbt/goddesskali.html. )
"Kali is the Dark Mother of the Hindu pantheon. She has what seem like contradictory aspects to most Western minds: she is protectress/avenger as well as beloved, gentle mother, she represents death and rebirth, she has bloody, violent aspects yet is called upon for mercy. Kali is the basic archetypal image of the birth-and-death Mother, simultaneously womb and tomb, giver of life and devourer of her children. Kali is found in the cremation ground amid dead bodies."
(http://www.paganpaths.net/kali.html. )
Kali is "The hungry earth, which devours its own children and fattens on their
corpses ... But all this and it should not be forgotten is an image not only
of the Feminine but particularly and specifically of the Maternal. For in a
profound way life and birth are always bound up with death and destruction."
(http://home.att.net/~gentletouch/kali.html.)
The name Kali comes from the word "kala," or time. She is the power of time which devours all. She has a power that destroys and should be depicted in awe-inspiring terror. Kali is found in the cremation ground amid dead bodies.
http://www.dollsofindia.com/kali.htm
By the time the Season Finale is shown, Buffy, and Sunnydale (pending any spin off) will truly have been devoured from beneath. BtVS is famous as a show all about change. No character remains static, even the ones who achieve immortality. The forces of change sweep through every season.
There is a pleasing symmetry behind the idea that the biggest bad of all, the First Evil's catchphrase is "from beneath you it devours", and the fact that it appears in the Final Season. Time is truly catching up with our heroine and her friends."
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Some thoughts on AtS and the Ra Tet (Spoilers, aired S4 eps) -- Rahael, 05:02:52 03/21/03 Fri
Thanks for that very thoughtful response, Celebaelin!
I was struck by your mention of the Solar cycle, because last night I watched Bring on the Night and the Long Day's Journey.
The Ra-Tet, I thought, with their expression of Ra's journey across the sky, was another metaphor where the spiritual is embodied in flesh. It could be linked to the whole idea of the progress of time/nature as the big bad of S7 in BtVS.
Also, the Ra Tet symbolise Angel/Liam/Angelus too. Angel - the lighter end of the spectrum. Liam - Manny, the potential, the neutral. And Angelus - evil little girl. Even the 'puddytat' could be a symbol for the monster inside we see in Pylea. Ra - the Sun God. Angel, whose soul is hidden in a safe and covered with a map of Versaille. Versaille built by the Sun King. It's interesting that themes of time/the passage of time and the falling of darkness is such a strong theme on both shows this season. Any thoughts?
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Gosh yes, Sun deity commonalities are meat and drink to me -- Celebaelin, 05:48:05 03/21/03 Fri
I've been thinking about this for a lot longer than Buffy has been running (it's a role-playing thing) but I'm not going to throw out a quick answer right now. To do your posts justice I need to sit down and write it out as coherently as possible. I'm still looking for better confirmation of the male (none) and female (a few) triple aspects.
Female: Maiden, Woman, Hag
Male: Hunter, Sower, Reaper (conjecture as yet, possibly a bit too energised, dynamic if you like)
Not for nothing is Appolo also the God of Archers (see my archived post with all the arrow quotes - it's the one about syllogisms).
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Okay! Looking forward to it! -- Rahael, 06:48:47 03/21/03 Fri
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Wow, fascinating. More please! -- Fascinated Poster, 05:46:50 03/22/03 Sat
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Working on it... -- Celebaelin, 07:56:49 03/22/03 Sat
The torouble I'm having at the moment is in making sure I'm right about Apollo Helios ie that Helios was sometimes considered an aspect of Apollo. There's a mosaic of Apollo in his sky chariot in St. Peter's in Rome and a reference I'm having trouble finding in which an ancient Greek historian describes Stonehenge as a great temple to Apollo, but since Lugh (for attentive readers, yes I've tracked that down now and Lugh was indeed a Sun God Lugh and Belenos both in fact, though presumably not both by the same person at the same time) was, like Apollo, the God of Arts and Crafts this may be a slight mislead. There's also the G.K. Chesterton story "The Innocence of Father Brown" in which the Sun is called 'The Eye of Apollo'. But I haven't found anybody in print yet who talks about Apollo Helios, they must be out there somewhere, I'm virtually certain I've heard that somewhere.
So, anyway, work in progress.
Thanks for your kind interest Fascinated Poster, may I call you FP for short, it's so much less formal don't you think?
Also wrt the trimurti, no, wait, bad Celebaelin, re-check your facts first. I'm so insecure it's almost tangible (but you need long arms, 'cos human insecurity is located in that spot right between the shoulder blades, you know, the one where the knife goes in, or rather doesn't 'cos we don't do that sort of stuff do we (my precious).
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Re: Working on it... -- Random, 08:23:57 03/22/03 Sat
To confirm: Yes, Helios was an aspect of Apollo...but a separate being too. Greek myth differs from Hindu or Egyptian in that there's very little blurring of identities between different gods. But some blurring of powers and roles. I rather think that Helios evolved from Apollo, historically.
As for the historian...try Roman. Hesiod, perhaps, or Polybius. Or, more likely, Herodotus. Or just ask Sophist -- he should have some good suggestions. The Greeks didn't know much about the area, but the Romans did.
Hope that helps.
~Random
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Re: Working on it... -- Celebaelin, 11:42:34 03/22/03 Sat
Many thanks Random, it was indeed Herodotus, but he was Greek, so I've clung on to some pride as concerns memory.
"The consensus is that Egyptian eschatology, including sun-worship in association with the ship of death --- each no doubt linked with the astral observations attendant upon navigation through both watery and desert wastes --- came to the north by various routes; or, indeed, given the antiquity of Stonehenge, and the evidence of Herodotus for northern links with the cult of Apollo on Delos (Cummins 35-41), that the traffic was two-way."
Cummins, W.A.; King Arthur's Place in Prehistory; Alan Sutton 1993
http://www.cichw.net/SSSB.htm
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Oops...sorry! -- Random, 11:55:06 03/22/03 Sat
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Absolutely no appology necessary, again, thanks for the information. -- Celebaelin, 12:03:22 03/22/03 Sat
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I mentioned in reply to frisby once... -- Tchaikovsky, 08:27:25 03/21/03 Fri
...that I see a very important Trinity in Dawn, Faith, Buffy. I think I was going along the lines of 'a classic ME subversion of the all-male trinity', with Buffy as Mother, Faith as daughter and Dawn as the Holy Spirit, (it's in the archives somewhere better explained). But someone came up with the triple of Maiden, Woman, Crone in response. Obviously with Dawn as Maiden, I think Buffy woman and Faith Crone. Although it works better with Buffy and Faith inverted if you're also looking at Past/Present/Future. Buffy is the past Slayer, Faith the present one, and Dawn the one with Potential, even if not Slayer Potential.
Not so sure I can see any obvious Male Triplets, although Angel/Wesley/Gunn could be an interesting one, (although haven't seen Season 4, so just guessing). And certainly, Liam/Angelus/Angel might be tweaked into Hunter/Sower/Reaper. Liam: the man who, through his carelessness and drunken stupor, gets himself turned into a vampire. Angelus the hunter of the human race. Angel, the one who must reap the consequences of his former selves' actions.
TCH
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Interestingly enough... -- Random, 08:51:16 03/23/03 Sun
The maiden/woman/crone is, I think, best interpreted as all being in the present. The continuum is encapsulated in all women in this particular interpretation. They each represent aspects of the feminine ideal...and the key to transcendence lies in integrating them all completely.
The tradition, while widespread, is most common in Northern and Eastern Europe. There, when they don't represent the Fates or whatnot (or even when they do), they are often indicative of the female role within society. Buffy, Dawn and Faith all have aspects of each. The issue, I think, is whether Buffy is the most complete of them all, and whether that allows her to transcend her fallibilites and force the final crux in the battle against the alien, pervasive, empty being that is the First Evil.
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We are born, we live, we do the other thing (or maybe not just yet). -- Celebaelin, 17:03:56 03/23/03 Sun
And now you know everything!
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brief comment on proposed female/male triple aspects -- anom, 14:36:03 03/24/03 Mon
"Female: Maiden, Woman, Hag
Male: Hunter, Sower, Reaper (conjecture as yet, possibly a bit too energised, dynamic if you like)"
I'd agree w/the "too dynamic" part--these 2 triads could be seen as implying female as be-er, male as do-er. Maybe there could be separate "being" & "doing" triads for each sex? What male aspects would correspond to the female ones named above--Youth, Man, hmm, is there a male equivalent to Hag/Crone? "Geezer"? @>) And the other problem w/the above "doing" aspects is that any of them could apply just as well to women, even in mythology--Artemis/Diana, anyone?
Ever wonder why we don't see the "3 aspects" model applied to men? Is it just because they're identified w/the sun, which doesn't go through visible changes as the moon does (hmm...sunspot cycles...nah)? Or is it because the men who came up w/these aspects just saw themselves as "me" throughout their lives & didn't recognize changes in themselves that corresponded to those they saw in the female "other"? Anyone else ever bothered by the way the sun, the greater light, is so often identified w/maleness & the moon, the lesser light, w/femaleness? (Would it be any different if Earth had >1 moon, or if its apparent size were larger than the sun's?) Is it just a secondary effect of the fact that the length of the menstrual cycle more or less coincides w/that of the moon's cycle of phases?
"...(see my archived post with all the arrow quotes - it's the one about syllogisms)."
Sounds cool! Sorry I missed it--where is it in the archives? Did you include my favorites ("Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." & "All syllogisms have 3 parts. Therefore this is not a syllogism.")?
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'Of if the moon is made of cheese and whether pigs have wings' -- Celebaelin, 18:36:29 03/24/03 Mon
There are quite a lot of triads of male deities if you think about it, not least of all Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It seems to me, reading between the lines, that a large number of cultures have existed with triple aspected Sun deities but I think you're right that Hunter, Sower, Reaper won't generally fit the pattern except very loosely (I'd need more Sun fertility or Sun agriculture aspects to be convinced about the Sower part). Reverse engineering it what I see generally is Warrior, Watcher, Undying Lord and I'm quite happy so far that those general terms will fit all cases, or at least can be made to. Hunter, Watcher, Reaper might similarly fit quite well.
Youth, Man,...Greybeard?
Perhaps even Lich (ie Corpse) as a more pejorative sounding term. I was about to start expanding on this but I'll leave myself something to say on the matter later I think.
A bit non-specific and doesn't address function or the day/night cycle. I believe the genders are different in this regard as a woman's' sexual role is more closely defined by her physical identity within the Maiden, Woman, Crone triad and in many regards in ancient societies a womanize' status depended on her sexual and reproductive function unless she was a priestess/witch/wisewoman.
I can't rationalise it but the Sun feels masculine to me and the moon feminine, it may be that it's inherent to the language (which would be remarkable in English as the words are gender neutral) or it may be, as it seems to me, that these are genuine archetypes. The balancing reversed gender aspects appear only rarely although some deities appear sexually ambivalent (or occasionally indiscriminate) as Caroline noted.
I suspect you're right about lunar cycles and menstrual cycles (and tides). There is also an inherent air of enigma and unattainability (again that might be inherent in English rather than archetypal but I suspect not). When you get right down to it what does the moon do?
Sister Moon (1987)
Sister moon will be my guide
In your blue blue shadows I would hide
All good people asleep tonight
I'm all by myself in your silver light
I would gaze at your face the whole night through
I'd go out of my mind but for you
Lying in a mother's arms
The primal root of a woman's charms
I'm a stranger to the sun
My eyes are too weak
How cold is a heart
When it's warmth that he seeks?
You watch every night, you don't care what I do
I'd go out of my mind but for you
I'd go out of my mind but for you
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun
My hunger for her explains everything I've done
To howl at the moon the whole night through
And they really don't care if I do
I'd go out of my mind but for you
Sister moon
Sting ...Nothing Like the Sun
"Extended derived 'syllogisms' on the pervading theme" was posted on 02/22/03, and yes, it does contain the arrow quote about bananas.
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womanize'! I did NOT type that I swear (woman's) -- Celebaelin, 18:44:36 03/24/03 Mon
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Re: 'Of if the moon is made of cheese and whether pigs have wings' -- anom, 22:42:47 03/24/03 Mon
A Carroll quote is always welcome!
"There are quite a lot of triads of male deities if you think about it, not least of all Father, Son and Holy Ghost."
I thought of mentioning this in the post you replied to...guess I should've. I was thinking in terms of triads that express aspects of the human rather than the divine. Of course, father & son are also aspects of the human, but holy ghost not so much, & this triad seems to be more specific than universal.
"...Hunter, Sower, Reaper won't generally fit the pattern except very loosely (I'd need more Sun fertility or Sun agriculture aspects to be convinced about the Sower part)."
Really? I see the sun more as Sower (providing the energy necessary to produce & sustain life on earth rather than actual seeds) than as Reaper. Am I being too literal?
"Reverse engineering it what I see generally is Warrior, Watcher, Undying Lord and I'm quite happy so far that those general terms will fit all cases, or at least can be made to."
I'm not sure how this is reverse engineering, & "Undying Lord" again seems outside the realm of human life. Maybe it's just that I'm unfamiliar w/the term. (That's an invitation to enlighten me.)
"Perhaps even Lich (ie Corpse) as a more pejorative sounding term."
Er...well, it sure is, but it's certainly not male-specific! And if I remember right, "crone" wasn't considered pejorative until relatively recently. It just had to do w/age.
"I believe the genders are different in this regard as a woman's' sexual role is more closely defined by her physical identity within the Maiden, Woman, Crone triad...."
I'm not sure that applies to the Crone. Reproductive, yes...sexual, not necessarily.
"I can't rationalise it but the Sun feels masculine to me and the moon feminine, it may be that it's inherent to the language (which would be remarkable in English as the words are gender neutral) or it may be, as it seems to me, that these are genuine archetypes."
Then again, we have the "man in the moon...." The grammatical gender does follow your perception in many languages, possibly all the Indo-European ones that have grammatical gender. Interestingly, Hebrew has both masculine & feminine names for both the sun & the moon. The f. one for the sun is probably used less often, but I don't think that's the case for the moon. (Anyone else have counterexamples?) The gender assignments in so many languages may have come from the archetypes.
"I suspect you're right about lunar cycles and menstrual cycles (and tides). There is also an inherent air of enigma and unattainability."
I wasn't thinking about tides--how do they fit in w/the moon's female synbolism? (Am I being too literal again?) As for the enigmatic & unattainable aspects, this also seems to me to be a function of woman as Other. Are women enigmatic to other women?
"When you get right down to it what does the moon do?"
Well, you mentioned tides yourself, for 1 thing. Are you talking about what it actually does or what's attributed to it in myth/symbolism?
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I'm trying not to pre-empt myself -- Celebaelin, 07:52:30 03/25/03 Tue
I'll answer in as far as I can without going into what I intend to include in a (hopefully coherent) later post provisionally titled Hollywood Waltz: Southern California Will See One More Day.
Father, Son and Holy Ghost: If you were to write Son, Father, Worshipped Undying would that change your perception? This aligns sufficiently well with Creator, Preserver, Destroyer for me to have some confidence in it.
I largely agree about the Sower part, that is certainly what I felt that I would find but it is relatively rare as regards Sun deities, Cerunos, the Celtic Horned God who 'hunts the moon across the sky', is the only one I've found so far. Fertility deities tend to be female and associated with the earth and its' bounty (though quite what chocolate coated coconut bars have got to do with fertility I'm sure I can't imagine).
Undying Lord - there is a common theme I promise you, sometimes it has positive connotations and sometimes negative ones, I've tried to use a catch-all general term. More information [12 marks], and illustrative examples [8 Marks] will be forthcoming I promise.
Lich, yes, again I agree. There's a roleplaying use of the word Lich which is closer but you're right about the gender imprecision. Greybeard will have to do I suppose. There is a mythological term "the wounded king" but I'm not totally happy about that either as it's not universal. As long as were talking about aspects of the human that relate to aspects of the divine spirit (the wisdom that comes with old age, not necessarily the specific wound that is meant in twk) I could let it stand.
The man in the moon? Snigger , sounds a bit rude! I think I'm right and I think, from you're final sentence, that you agree.
I have no idea when it became known in an intuitive sense that the tides were caused by the moons gravitational attraction. In a scientific sense it must have been after Newton. But anyway the answer, at least in part, is that the cyclical nature of tides is caused by the moon's gravitational action on the oceans which cover two thirds of the planet's surface.
Are women enigmatic to other women?
I generalise, but I think there is a certain appeal in being so, if only wrt the way in which that regulates their interactions with men.
"When you get right down to it what does the moon do?"
The moon of course, in a strict sense, does not 'do' anything except orbit the Earth. It has effects due to its' mass, the shadow that it casts and even the light it reflects combined with the shadow cast upon it. But if the moon is a goddess what does she do? What I've read so far is that the sun and the moon are the eyes of a god (a supreme deity) who watches over the world. This is not very common but it does occur. There's also Pah (Native North American) associated with light, protection (at night) and women.
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Re: Avatars of the Slayer (morcel 2) -- Celebaelin, 19:15:40 03/20/03 Thu
Aha! Oh the cunningness that is me. Here we go with the rest of it.
In this interpretation it appears that Buffy is not only the Last Guardian of the Hellmouth she is its' most regular and direct opponent ever and probably the greatest champion to remain in close proximity to it without dying, the Most Improved Slayer Award goes to...I am also tempted to interpret the Last Guardian of the Hellmouth as meaning that Buffy IS the Hellmouth (or at least it is her Jungian shadow), the vagina dentata as Rah would have it, the devouring female through whom others are spiritually re-born as individuals. There is certainly a case for saying that Buffy is a Terrible Mother, ask S6 Dawn. This becomes more complicated if we take it one step further and say Buffy must combine her ego with this manifestation of her shadow and EMERGE FROM THE HELLMOUTH TO DEFEAT THE FE (three dramatic chords of the Dan Dan Daaah variety). What? It could happen......well it could. Couldn't it?
Lilbit
"There is now darkness within the Slayer, a darkness that gives her the power to stand against the demons, to withstand evil. This darkness becomes all the First Slayer, Sineya, knows. She exists for only one purpose, to kill. To kill the demons. And that purpose will follow all in her line, as will the shadow, the darkness. Buffy once told Sineya, "You are not the source of me." In this she is both correct and incorrect. While Sineya is the First in the Slayer line, and therefore the anchor, it is the shadow, the demon inheritance that is the source of the Slayer. It is worth noting that the Shaman who met Buffy in the desert are called the Shadowmen, for this is what they most certainly were - those who brought the shadow, the demon spirit and heart, to the Slayer.
[Spirit Guide]
"You think you're losing your ability to love.
. . .
You're afraid that being the Slayer means losing your humanity.
. . .
You are full of love.
You love with all your soul.
It's brighter than the fire ... blinding.
That's why you pull away from it.
[Buffy]
"I'm full of love? I'm not losing it?"
[Spirit Guide]
"Only if you reject it.
Love is pain, and the Slayer forges strength from pain.
Love ... give ... forgive.
Risk the pain. It is your nature.
Love will bring you to your gift."
- Intervention -
The action of Kali is oriented toward spiritual evolution. Those who pass her tests are the spiritual heroes, and have the grace of the Goddess on their side.
Buffy and Faith will both need to conquer their fear of themselves and their peculiar heritage, allowing the darkness to become a part of them before either can successfully stand against the First Evil, who uses fear to create doubt and despair. Once they accept all the aspects of the Goddess within, they can continue the most interesting spiritual journey of the Slayer."
Further to the devouring female and spiritual re-birth (separation, parturition even perhaps) idea I find these contributions to the thread:-
Shadowkat
"The female fears the male's desire to contain her energy, the male's view that it is dirty, that she is dirty and because of this, he will banish her, reject her - leaving her to be all alone in the desert without him. The male fears his own castration, emasculation by her power - fear of having his primal energy being domesticated, of not being the one in power - so he seeks to contain and control her instead. She fears being cast-off. He fears being castrated or strode upon. At least that was the theory I was struggling with in 1988 when I collected and studied celtic myths and ghost stories relating to these images.
Spike ironically is fighting the very thing that sent him hunting a soul, the very reason he decided to become the better man - his devotion. Ironically, to become that better man, he may have to against his mother and find out what is right on his own. Which, correct me if I'm wrong, may be what Shiva does when he stops dancing with Kali and prostrates himself? Or does he ever do it?"
There is even a possibility that the Hellmouth may have an archetypal masculine form, a shadow animus (hmmm), maybe the one Buffy has been chasing in her entanglements with vampire lovers. This would be reflected in mythology by Ymir (?others?), the giant of Norse myth from whom the giants bud off in anatomically unlikely places ie his feet. Norse myth is extremely misogynistic at this early stage, as far as I know the only clearly female entity named is a cow called Auðhumla on whose milk Ymir fed and who licked salty ice blocks and "released" a man. After Ymir is killed by three God 'grandchildren' of Buri, the first man, (Odin, Vili and Ve) he body is formed into the worlds of men and of giants.
Shadowkat again
"Spike can only create from death and only by creating more death."
Caroline
"I also think that while it is highly interesting that earlier versions of middle eastern and european myth show the feminine goddesses ascendant (or in some cases contained both masculine and feminine energies with the feminine aspect ascendant) later images have masculine gods ascendant (and in some cases masculine gods also being able to create parthenogenically)."
And finally, just to be silly 'cos it's fun to be silly I couldn't resist Ms. Doolittle's line "I'm a good girl I am."
Shadowkat again
"Ripper Giles - Henry Higgins to Buffy's Eliza? The kindly professor with that dark edge? The reluctant father fighting the reluctant watcher? The ends justify the means approach the Watcher Council clearly advocates?
In seasons past, she has worried about Giles' rejection of her. In Grave when she meekly tells him what's been happening, his laughter comes as a relief. In Innocence - she worries he is horribly disappointed. Buffy's fear of the male is as complex as the male fear of her."
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Interesting...Ben/Glory, Dawn/Andrew, Giles/Ethan -- s'kat, 10:02:29 03/21/03 Fri
The male role in Btvs is starting to intrique me. I'm not sure it is Hunter/Sower/Reaper exactly.
Here's some more thoughts on male imagery in Btvs:
1. Ben/Glory
While talking with a friend last night, I remembered something about Ben and Glory, which I'd forgotten. Ben was the prison for Glory. A masculine prison. The powerful frightening female hell god is caged within the body of the male other.
When Glory is cast out of her realm, she is cast out by her brother gods, not sister. They imprison her in Buffyverse dimension in a male. The male is born to cage Glory. It has taken her years to find a way of getting out of the male prison, but she is able to do it at intervals.
Ben - is a doctor, trying to be a healer. He save Giles, father figures, life in Spiral, even.
Glory - is a destructive force - sucks brain matter, destroys people, sucks Tara - the mother figure's brain.
Glory is caged within Ben, yet in the apartment complex - Glory lives in the splendor, Ben resides in a back room on a cot. (Weight of The World)
But I keep coming back to the fact - that she is caged inside him. A man is the female goddess' prison.
And who does Giles kill? Glory? No. He kills Ben. He destroys the male prison in order to kill the destructive female within it. But is he really killing her or merely setting her free? He thinks he's killing her. And how does he do it? By covering Ben's nose and mouth and suffocating him - blocking Glory's escape routes??
Another interesting thing in the whole S5 arc - Giles' decision to kill Dawn, Buffy's decision to sacrifice herself.
Male contains female. Male father figure blocks her exit routes and kills her. I've always found it interesting the writers chose to have Giles do it in this way, instead of have Buffy just kill Glory in her feminine aspect. (Like she kills the Mayor, The Master, and Adam).
2. Dawn/Andrew
Isn't it interesting that Andrew did not appear until after Dawn was saved? I wonder if Andrew is a gift with purchase?
When Dawn was created, did Andrew appear at the same time as Dawn's counter? After all Dawn is the key that the entity Ben/Glory is looking for. So when the monk's made Dawn from the slayer - creating a girl, wouldn't it make sense that Andrew appeared as a reaction to that. The male counter?
Looking back, what do we know about Andrew? I've been re-watching S6 on FX and noticed something interesting in Flooded and Life Serial - in Flooded when Andrew is introduced, Warren and Jonathan describe him as summoning the demon dogs for prom. Andrew says: Brain wipe, next scene, that was Tucker, I did the flying monkeys for school play, remember?, Jonathan and Warren pause confused, then laugh as if suddenly the memory popped into their heads.
We on the other hand, scratch our heads wondering when did this happen. Later in Gone - they introduce Andrew to Buffy and Willow in the same manner, neither remember him, they say Tucker's brother - and they say, Oh. This is repeated in NLM with Spike and Buffy explains Andrew as "Tucker's Brother". I'm wondering if Andrew is the male version of Dawn, the construct.
Remember in Tough Love - Dawn wonders if she is evil and can't see how she could be good? Spike tells her she's not evil. This in some ways is echoed by Andrew in Storyteller
and Potential. Also Dawn seems to flick between sexualities as does Andrew, both get turned on by men and to some degree women - seem almost adrogynous. (Although I think I'm reaching there on Dawn.) And Dawn and Andrew appear to be bonding this year.
Could it be that when Dawn appeared and became part of the SG, Andrew appeared and became part of the Troika...slowly over time?? That the reason Andrew is drug to SunnyDale is counteract or catalyst Dawn in some way??
Also Dawn seems to be grabbing each of the powers: Mind (reads Summarian), Spirit (casts the spell in CwDP), heart (gives to Amanda in Potential), and slowly moving towards Will (staking the vampires or knowing when) - could Dawn end up being the combo on her own??
And Andrew...is he the blank counter? The contruct to set her off in some way?
3. Giles/Ethan
Ethan seems to come into the story whenever Giles needs to be reminded of who he really is. Ripper. In Halloween - Ethan shows up and tells Giles, you're not really this nice kindly stuttering Dad, you're really a killer, a ruthless man, a mystic like me. Also in Halloween - the God is Janus and it is depicted as a male/female entity - not unlike the Glory/Ben that Giles kills, just as he smashes Janus head in Halloween.
Later in Dark Age - Ethan shows up again reminding us of what Giles did, where he came from, with the Eighon spell.
A spell about being possessed by an evil demon or presence.
And Giles admits to killing a friend who got taken over by it because they couldn't figure out how to get the essence out. It was better to kill the friend, then let the essence remain. The essence, Eighon (sp?) comes back to possess Giles and hurt him as vengeance - for a) summoning it and b) casting it out. (Reminds me a little of the Shadowmen ritual in GiD). Instead of possessing Giles - it possesses Jenny and Jenny becomes incredibly aggressive physically with Giles, also is violated by the essence. Also Ethan, not wanting to be possessed, erases his tattoo and puts it on Buffy - so the essence will violate her.
Ethan returns a year later in Band Candy - where he reverts Giles to his youthal self. We see who Giles was. (So it is 1. Who Giles still is, 2. What Giles has done, 3. Who Giles was). Giles was a hood, much like Spike actually - complete with smoking, British street slang, and punkish habits. His interaction with Joyce is incredibly similar to Spike's with Buffy in S6. Giles wants to kill Ethan and takes a gun to consider it. Buffy has to talk him out of it. I'm wondering what he would have done if Buffy hadn't been there.
Ethan's final appearance is in A NEW MAN where he literally turns Giles into a demon, a Fyarl Demon which is all about rage and crushing things - and no intellect, the opposite of Gile's view of himself. He struggles with this. And tells Spike, he still has his soul, that makes a difference.
Once again Ethan pulls out the demonic side of Giles and shows it to him. Ethan - Giles counter. Reminding Giles of where he's been, who he could be.
I miss Ethan.
Just some additional thoughts.
SK
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Tacking onto those thoughts... -- Random, 12:30:25 03/21/03 Fri
What fascinates me is the fact that I always subconsciously assigned a feminine persona to the FE. Not out of misogyny...perhaps because the first time we viewed it was as Jenny Calendar. But in mythological terms, it would be quite appropriate. Over and above Rah's explication of Kali, we are also faced with the traditional image of the earth as Gaia, the mother, and the yawning hellmouth (vagina dentata?) beneath echoes traditional Freudian imagery. It is, in fact, very much a feminine scheme, the FE giving birth to all later evil and nurturing it, much as the Hellmouth gives birth to the evil hidden in its womb/demon dimension. (An interesting side note regards the famous Polynesian story of Maui the trickster, who attempts to defeat death by climbing into the vagina of the sleeping Goddess of the Underworld, Hine-Nui-Te-Po -- called simply Hina in Maxine Hong Kingston's fascinating China Men when she recounts a variation of the story. He orders his companions, the birds, to be silent as he attempts to enter her vagina and emerge through her mouth, thus attaining immortality. However, one of the birds laughs at the sight of his legs wriggling outside, and wakens the Goddess, who closes her legs and crushes Maui to death. Thus humanity never achieves immortality.)
But your analysis of the males is interesting. I wonder whether: A) we can interpret Glory as a female in the strictest sense; and B) what is the nature of the Dawn/Andrew construct.
On point A, we've never gotten a clear explication of Glory's nature. Was that her actual appearance prior to her exile? It seems unlikely...indeed, being a demonic god, there's no particular reason to assign a gender to her at all. True, virtually all mythologies have assigned genders to virtually all gods and goddesses (some gender bending goes on, but mostly in the most primal beings...Ymir being a good example). But it's an open question whether she would have been, well, a "she" -- especially in a more Judeo-Christian scheme wherein demonic forces are often sexless. Note also the question of Buffy/Kali. Therefore, why does she take the appearance she does, metaphorically/metaphysically/physically speaking? She seemed to lack any traditional feminine roles -- despite her inordinate SoCal-iness, she seems to be lacking in reproductive or nurturing roles. Ben, as you pointed out, is the healer. He's also the prison. His role is no more maternal than Sing-Sing's role. That he allows Glory to survive is unquestionable -- but any prison would have done the trick.
On point B: that's a fascinating idea. Andrew as a construct to mirror Dawn. It would be very much in keeping with BtVS mythology, after all Jonathan's Superstar role, the raised hackles of Afterlife...everything has a mirror, masculine or otherwise. So once again...why make Dawn a sister? She was the Key, but there seems to be no particular creative or gestative role for the Key. At least so far as we've discovered. (Just to be clear, I'm not suggesting that the nature of being female can be reduced to such roles...just that, in a metaphorical/metaphysical universe such as the Buffyverse, such questions have to be asked) Andrew as Dawn's catalyst. Interesting indeed. Well, like Dawn, Andrew can bring demons into the world. Something to consider, though, is Andrew's essential androgyny. He embodies both male and female aspects...but seems essentially sterile on both regards, metaphysically speaking. His ambiguity is less a mix of both than a lack of clear cut attributes one way or the other. Perhaps we will soon see what Andrew's greater destiny is, if he has a greater one. Dawn, incidentally, is a cutie and very much the (still underage) female...I'm not certain she flickers very much except in ways that could be easily explained by normal adolescent growing pangs. Indeed, she resembles her sister in many ways -- alternating normal sexual behaviour with the necessity of firm and aggressive behaviour in the face of a Hellmouth that wants to devouir them.
Fascinating as always, s'kat.
~Random
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STILL hope to keep thread up--no time to reply yet! -- luna, 18:51:42 03/23/03 Sun
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Tick Tock -- Celebaelin, 04:19:46 03/24/03 Mon
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Cuckoo! Cuckoo! -- Your Friendly Cuckoo Bird, 10:34:22 03/24/03 Mon
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Swiss time was running out, it seemed that we would lose the race! -- Celebaelin, 10:40:23 03/24/03 Mon
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Sorry its taken so long to respond -- lunasea, 12:59:23 03/24/03 Mon
I tend to be a little warry of discussions about various mythologies, especially Hindu. They are incredibly interesting from an academic and literary perspective. I love to analyze mythology in order to better understand the society that gave rise to it.
When we start to compare that to modern mythology, I tend to balk. The society that gave rise to the trimurti was so different from the one I live in, how can what they came up with have any relevance to what we have now? It all ultimately comes from the collective unconscious and that all humans have in common, but the form that takes is determined by things that are not common to all humans.
Eastern and Western mythology is so different that it is almost impossible for each society to really understand the other. They go at things from entirely different perspectives. That is what drew me to Buddhism. It wasn't dropping Western perspective for Eastern. It was dropping both. I was good at discarding my perspective for another. I had done it many times. That was my problem. I had to get beyond perspective all together. Buddhism offered me a path to do this.
One of the things that drives the difference between Western and Eastern thought was brough to my attention by my husband the other day. It was in something he was reading for grad school. I can get the exact reference if anyone wants.
Western thought is based on a vastly different concept of time than Eastern. Western agriculture depended on an accurate calendar. Eastern agriculture depended on the monsoon. It came, you planted. The stars didn't have to be in a certain alignment. You didn't have to know what day of the year it was. Life wasn't divided into months and days. It was rainy season or not rainy season.
Western thought is also based on a vastly different concept of "self." The fluidity of the gods in Hindu reflect the Eastern view of self that many Westerners have trouble understanding. Nirvana is probably the most misunderstood term in Buddhism. In Sanskrit it means the extinguishing of a fire. It sounds like the ego is annihilated. That is a misunderstanding brought about because of different scientific understanding. At the time Buddha used the term, it was believed that a fire clings to its fuel in a state of entrapment and agitation. When it goes out, it lets go of the fuel, growing calm and free. If you try to destroy the ego, you actually make is stronger. In Buddhism the ego is transcended or discarded (as the illusion that it is), much as Buffy is transcending her slayer identity.
And just a note of correction: Hindu post-dates Buddhism. Brahamism pre-dates and is the origins of both.
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Very interesting, but a couple points of clarification -- Random, 13:39:52 03/24/03 Mon
Hinduism is, for all intents and purposes, merely the modern-day evolution of Brahmanism, much as one would refer to the modern Protestant sects as evolving from Catholicism. The difference is mostly emphasis. Hinduism -- from a variation of the Persian term for "Indian" -- became the name for Brahmanism quite simply because the religion was the most endemic in India...home of the Hindus. Both are predicated upon the same sacred texts, the Vedas, the Brahmanas, and Upanishads. Modern Bhakti Hinduism does utilize further texts -- the Mahabharata epic being a prime example -- and certainly places greater importance upon the figures of Siva and Vishnu than Brahma the Creator...but this is merely an organic change over the space of centuries, and in any event, the essential make-up remains unchanged. Buddhism, though often retaining extraneous vestiges of the polytheistic order from whence it sprang, is essentially a new religion in its focus -- a-theistic (as opposed to atheistic) if you will, a philosophy as much as a religion
I like your points about Eastern vs Western. The issue of time and measurement didn't occur to me while I was writing. It's the fluidity that we (RanRahBit) were truly interested in. The blurring is not merely restricted to Eastern thought as such, though it's a fairly accurate way to describe it in practice...rather, it is fairly characteristic of any ancient thought. The Egyptians had it; they even had rudimentary avatars (a famous example being Sekhmet the Lioness and Bastet the cat, both of whom emerged from the great goddess Hathor.) The Sumerians and Babylonians both demonstrate some measure this fluidity as well -- not surprising, given the political and cultural turmoil that characterized the "cradle of civilization" over the millenia. Even the early Hebraic (read the Pentauch and Mosaic history) showed signs of it.
Insofar as the Nirvana aspect goes, however, perhaps I oversimplified for the sake of expediency. Granted, it's not simply annihilation per se...but the ego -- and keep in mind that we are using the term in the very Western sense -- is cast off and ceases to exist. Hence, effectively annihilated, whether proactively or reactively. I imagine Ryuei could better explain than I could (though he rarely posts anymore.)
~Random
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West/East and why the fluidity -- lunasea, 16:45:45 03/24/03 Mon
Western/Eastern discussions are often hard to have because they use similar terms, but mean different things. The ego in Eastern thought is basically skanda meaning "aggregate" or "heap" comprised of: form, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. It is also refered to as the aggregate of attachment, since craving attaches itself to them and attracts them to itself.
Buddhist psychology is fascinating, but before one can even explore it, one has to get beyond individuation being the "goal." The ego cannot be annihilated because it really doesn't exist. Buddhist psychology isn't about understanding ourselves, so much as understanding that all this is an illusion and the suffering learn, just for dropping my own Western ingrained ideas in order to understand it. In doing this, I actually experienced what Buddhism was trying to get me to see.
(My favorite part of BtVS is along these lines. It doesn't just show me things, but often makes me into the characters. I AM Buffy and Angel and to a lesser degree Willow and Wesley. Not that we have things in common or they are archetypal, but I feel what they feel along with them)
As a former Catholic, I wouldn't call Protestantism Catholicism, just because it evolved from it. They are both forms of Christianity, but there are some incredibly important differences, not just emphasis. I wouldn't call the faith of the Apostles Catholicism either. Catholicism starts with the Council of Nicaea. Is Catholicism Judaism because it evolved from it? (the evolution of Judaism is fascinating. The differences after the 2nd Diaspora when the Hebrews were exposed to Zorastrianism combined with how badly they had been abused sets up the extreme dichotomy of good/evil that Christianity inherits)
At some point in evolution, a new organism is created. Brahamism became Hinduism because of the socio-political changes going on the Indian subcontinent. My memory is failing me now. I can't remember if it was going from city-states or to them. I do remember the merchant/middle class was rising and ecnomics was playing a greater role.
If I remember correctly (and I may not) I believe a similar thing happened that happened with the Greek city-states. The Greek city-states had their individual patron god/desses. When they united in defense against Persia, these god/desses got combined into a pantheon. That is another reason for the fluidity and redundancy present in these systems.
If you are looking for the reasons for this fluidity, another reason is because you are looking at civilizations that are forming cities and going from hunter-gatherer to agrarian. The Faith of Abraham is Sumer-Babylonian (which is built around cities and agriculture) adapted for nomads who wander the desert whose existence isn't quite as secure as the city-dwellers. With the rise in cities, we also have a need for diplomacy. That shows in the religion.
Buddhism is supposed to be a-theistic. One of the four imponderable (Buddhism really loves lists) is the cosmos, which includes all those things that theism loves to think about. The Six realms are: hungry ghost, animal, hell, human, jealous god, and manufactured god. The gods are real, they are just subject to karma and samsara. Enlightenment is only possible from the human realm. However, as it migrated across Asia, it mixed with the local religions. At one point, especially when I was studing Theravada, I was interested in understanding the history of Buddhism and the Hinduism that gave rise to it (the mediation techniques the Buddha learned were taught to him by Brahmins and Brahma figures heavily in Buddha's enlightenment). I think I abandoned that raft a while ago and did a brain dump.
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Good points, all -- Random, 17:23:43 03/24/03 Mon
Fascinating...I was unfamiliar with lots of those details. I was, incidentally, trying to make the exact point you make -- that both are Christianity, but one preceded the other, both chronologically and in terms of causality. Protestantism evolved directly from Catholicism, though through more conflict than the evolution of Hinduism. And both evolved from the Nicean Council and creed, though all of this was preceded by, and in some cases, contemporaneous with, the assorted creeds we lump together as Gnosticism. And none are Judaism for precisely the reason that I consider Buddhism completely distinct from Brahmanism or Hinduism.
Hinduism, called as such, is relatively recent. I imagine that the socio-political changes probably involved greater contact with Western imperialism, specifically the English and the Dutch.
Yes, the lack of commonality on transcultural terminology presents a stick issue. If, by ego, I mean distinct individuality and personality (per Western standards) then the question of Nirvana becomes problematic for us. You make a good point about the issue of how Buddhism percieves ego.
Thanks for the history. It's an excellent clarification of the terribly complex issues involved. Sigh...I really wish I had the patience for thorough research instead of winging it with the limited knowledge stored in my brain.
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Re: Good points, all -- lunasea, 09:40:41 03/25/03 Tue
I imagine that the socio-political changes probably involved greater contact with Western imperialism, specifically the English and the Dutch.
Predates that. The Indian subcontinent has an incredibly rich history. If anything the Muslim invasion had more influence. It pretty much wiped out Buddhism, which was based around the monastaries. It couldn't touch how ingrained to every facet of life Hinduism was.
Sigh...I really wish I had the patience for thorough research instead of winging it with the limited knowledge stored in my brain.
I know the feeling. I define religion as the cultural expression of faith. In order to understand religion/mythology, it really helps to understand the culture. In order to understand the culture, you have to understand the history that shaped it. Everything is connected, so that is history of not only the people that had the religion, but that of those it had contact with. Trying to understand the changes that occcured in Judaism after the second Diaspora without being familiar with Zorastrianism and the Persians is pretty pointless (the last messiah was even Persian and not Hebrew). Without this, understanding Christianity becomes an intellectual exercise at best. There are a number of things that are important, just to get Christianity at its inception, including the political squabbles between the various Pharasiac schools as well as why the books know as "Writings" weren't considered cannon, not to mention the effects of Roman occupation.
Another really fun one to do is Islam and why it spread so easily. The Byzantine and Saasanian empires kicking the crap out of each other had to do more with it than anything that could be considered a miracle. The politics behind Mohammed and the later split between Shiite and Sunni are also interesting. Peace in the Middle East? There is a funny idea. Democratize Iraq and the rest will follow? What are Cheney and the Neoconservatives smoking?
Buddhism gets pretty complicated because we are talking about so many different cultures most of which aren't taught in school. A show of hands for those who have even heard of King Ashoka?
There is only so much time in the school year and sadly a lot gets left out. Thank god for TLC and the Discovery Channel. For me the hardest part is maintaining my focus on one thing long enough to really understand it. I go off on a million and one tangents and often forget what I was originally studying.
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language clarification, please? -- anom, 16:13:17 03/25/03 Tue
"Buddhist psychology isn't about understanding ourselves, so much as understanding that all this is an illusion and the suffering learn, just for dropping my own Western ingrained ideas in order to understand it."
Does the 1st underlined part mean that those who are suffering learn? or that our suffering is a way that we learn? Did some words get dropped from the phrase?
Does the 2nd mean--well, I really don't get this one; what happens (or what do you gain?) for dropping those ideas? Are you the one suffering who learns, just for dropping them?
I think I was following you pretty well up to that point, & again after it...interesting stuff that I mostly don't know enough to comment on.
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Re: language clarification, please? -- lunasea, 16:42:26 03/25/03 Tue
I think Voynok ate a whole line or something. Buddhist psychology takes an opposite stance to Western psychology. In Buddhism, the point is to understand the psyche in order to see it as an illusion so that you can abandon it. It studies how the development of the psyche happens and how this leads to suffering. The remedy isn't to understand it or to change it. It is to abandon it.
Vastly different from Western thought which wants us all to find ourselves. In Buddhism we find ourselves to loose ourselves. Buddhism is about dropping judgement, our preconceived notions in order to live in the moment. In order to even understand Buddhist psychology, I had to drop my Western judgement, my preconceived notions about the psyche and who I was. I read with a totally blank mind. My only goal was understanding what was being said, not how it applied to me.
In doing that, I was practicing Buddhism, even before I became a Buddhist and took Refuge in the Triple Gem. It was an amazing experience and encouraged me to really look into the methods the Buddha outlined that make up the raft that gets one across the stream to Nirvana.
As for those dropped ideas, let me try to explain it this way. I can think in French. I actually use this in a Fanfict I am writing to explain how a Slayer works. Here is what I wrote:
"Think in French?" Buffy asked.
"Yeah, when you first learn a language, everything is a translation. If you want to say something, you think of the concept, how to say it in English and then you translate that into French. When I am in the right space, I go from concept directly to French. It is weird the first few times it happens, but it is liberating." Liz told her.
"Sounds weird," Buffy said. "I never even got to the translation part. I went directly to say it in English and then get really frustrated and say stupid things."
"It is like slaying." Liz wanted to explain this to Buffy. "Instinct just kicks in and you don't have to think about your next move. You don't have to translate kill monster,"
"Demon," Angel interupted her.
"Whatever," Liz continued. "You go directly from concept to dead monster. You don't have to think about how to get there."
That is why you drop those ideas. They are actually an unnecessary step that tends to mess us up. It is part of the chain reaction that leads to suffering. Break that chain and cease suffering.
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Narratives and mythologies -- Rahael, 00:27:13 03/25/03 Tue
Well, I don't find eastern and western mythologies difficult to integrate, since I grew up a Christian baptised into the church of England, with a Buddhist father, and within a strong Hindu community. Our Christianity was strongly flavoured by the Hindu community we grew up in - it's very difficult to articulate and explain, but in many ways my world view is very Hindu. It doesn't mean that I can understand or discuss it as well as I can Christianity, but that's because I spent three years studying European history at a time when Christianity was crucial to social and political history.
But, in terms of where I feel at home in, the landscape I am familiar with, hinduism and Christianity and buddhism are so much a part of me, that I can't separate them. I only know where the veneer of Christianity ends and where the vast hinterland of hinduism and buddhism are in my imagination and mind when I bump up against unspoken, instinctive cultural blindspots.
I have grown up with Kali, or the idea of her all my life. With her blackness, her dynamism, her fierce love, she stood for a different identity of womanhood and femininity in a society which valued, and indeed enforced passivity and obediance from women. My grandmother's father may have converted to Christianity, but he still gave her an arranged marriage, with the traditional consultation of horoscopes and so on.
I think your dichotomy between 'eastern' and 'western' is rather simplistic. You are making Eastern ideas of agriculture and the divisions of time seem simplistic compared to the West. I wonder how different a concept of time exists in early modern Europe for example - a year which was shaped by religious festivals, intertwined with agricultural events. There's more than 'monsoon' and not 'monsoon' in SE Asia!
Religious thought in the South East is very syncretic, very varied. And Hinduism and Buddhism are not monolithic bodies of thought. They contain much variety and contradiction and tension.
What Kali is, to me is a wonderful narrative. Not a mythology, not a religious concept, but just another narrative I grew up with, and therefore able to be used as a prism to view a new narrative - Buffy!
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Footnote on Agriculture -- Rahael, 04:25:28 03/25/03 Tue
Not my expert topic, by any means!! But, while the rice crop was aligned with the monsoon season, this was not the only crop. In between, there would be other grains, and other crops. Some of these were for purely ecological purposes - to re-enrich the soil.
This resulted in an agricultural year as complex as a European one, and was imbued with a similar religious significances. I grew up celebrating alternative calendar celebrations to that of the Western Calendar. While it was the Western calender that was used, there were many people who never used the English/English translated month names, but stuck to original/alternative descriptions for their year.
In fact, my father, who comes from quite a different religious/cultural background - Buddhist - (from a big farming family, incidentally) still celebrates a different new year from the Western one *and* the one I grew up celebrating. (Three new years mean lots of great food!). He still cooks the special dishes meant for the day.
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Re: Narratives and mythologies -- lunasea, 10:00:53 03/25/03 Tue
I think your dichotomy between 'eastern' and 'western' is rather simplistic.
This is a message board and often simplistic is all that can be gotten into, especially for concepts that most participants have little exposure to.
But, in terms of where I feel at home in, the landscape I am familiar with, hinduism and Christianity and buddhism are so much a part of me, that I can't separate them.
Such is the problem with labels, but that is all we have on a bullentin board, words. My Mandalas explain things much better.
Religious thought in the South East is very syncretic, very varied. And Hinduism and Buddhism are not monolithic bodies of thought. They contain much variety and contradiction and tension.
And if I began to get into the differences between Theravada and Mahayana how many would have any frame of reference? Then there is the differences between various schools of Mahayana. Zen has two main schools. Tibet has four main schools. That isn't factoring in all the local variations. That is Buddhism alone.
she stood for a different identity of womanhood and femininity in a society which valued, and indeed enforced passivity and obediance from women.
therefore able to be used as a prism to view a new narrative - Buffy!
Kali rose in the society above. Buffy didn't. How do you view Buffy through that same prism?
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Not getting into this one... -- Random, 10:19:52 03/25/03 Tue
'cause Rah can address these issues far better than me. But Kali, I think, should be viewed through the prism of metaphor and analogy. She is an essential being as well as transcendent. She performs a function that can be analyzed in terms of her dark feminine nature. Buffy may not have risen in the society above, but she's certainly been graced with more power and more opportunity than other humans within her own society. Witness the fact that she seems to be saving the world more often than I go in for a physical. Of course, it may be unfair to compare a goddess with a mortal in the normal course of things -- but that's the function of analogy and metaphor. To escape the hermetic perspective and find a synthetic one.
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Quick reply - running off to meet a friend -- Rahael, 10:55:16 03/25/03 Tue
Agree with everything Random has said.
This is a message board and often simplistic is all that can be gotten into, especially for concepts that most participants have little exposure to.
You'd be surprised to what depths this board can enlarge and discuss ideas. It's why I stay around. Words may be all we have, but perhaps that limitation may allow us to try to be even more expressive, even more empathetic, even more willing to listen, argue and discuss.
The reason I made the objection, that the East/West dichotomy was a little simplistic is that I often find that the East is exoticised and othered in contrast to the West. In reality, different religious cultures share a lot, in terms of the power of ritual, (i.e, the ritualised holy year in early modern Europe), the way it plays in our lives, the inspiration it gives those who participate within it.
Kali rose in the society above. Buffy didn't. How do you view Buffy through that same prism?
Hopefully with imagination and sensitivity.
I'm sorry that it appears that you didn't get much out of my essay, but that's not really a problem for me. Horses for courses and all that. Some people did, some people clearly didn't. What I want to argue here is that there are many ways for us to come to a narrative, and nearly all of us bring other narratives with us in viewing it. I brought in this essay, one narrative that I thought was illuminating. I didn't claim it as fact, I said it was a fleeting reflection in a mirror. That is the spirit in which I offered it.
That is the spirit in which I take your narratives to Buffy, and, incidentally, enjoy. For me, BtVS shimmers and moves even on its very surface with these multiple interpretations. This board is where I come to find more and share mine. We make it richer. We use only words to build an invisible community.
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Re: Quick reply - running off to meet a friend -- lunasea, 11:44:09 03/25/03 Tue
The reason I made the objection, that the East/West dichotomy was a little simplistic is that I often find that the East is exoticised and othered in contrast to the West. In reality, different religious cultures share a lot, in terms of the power of ritual, (i.e, the ritualised holy year in early modern Europe), the way it plays in our lives, the inspiration it gives those who participate within it.
I thought we were talking about the different POV represented by East and West, which is why Occidental and Oriental societies tend to be contrasted. They operate off of different paradigms. Exploring those differences seems valuable to me. Not what someone believes or how they practice or even what it causes, but why. From why we can see the roots of those commonalities and differences.
It is like we come upon people playing a board game. All players are confined by the same rules. They have different strategies and have rolled the dice differently so they are in different places. By observing this game, we can figure out the rules. Then we can come up with our own strategy for playing.
Isn't that what BtVS is about? life is "a meaningless void, and what matters is the struggle to find the good. And the relationships you build with people while you struggle." (Marti Noxon) Can't get more meaningless than a board game. All we have to do is find a strategy and enjoy the company of the other players.
I did enjoy your essay. It is interesting to see what forms the strategies that other people use to play their game. It actually helped me figure something out that has been puzzling me about Angelus, which is why I kept pushing. I do love the multiple interpretations. A piece from one here and another piece from another one and a whole new interpretation is created.
That is the beauty of a message board.
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